In Memoriam Bella Swan
by teabizarre
Summary: AU New Moon. The Cullens don't leave Forks after Edward and Bella's break-up. BxE
1. Chapter 1

_AU: Set in _New Moon_. Edward and the other Cullens don't leave Forks after the break up. This story begins somewhere after Bella starts going back to school. Based largely on the books, but I've added things from the movies._

1.

It had been weeks of nothing, but there was still the initial shock when I accidentally _saw_ something—the car, a shoe as it walked past me down the aisle, a bit of white skin, a button, a gleaming apple on their lunch table. I'd come to know them in abstract pieces unattached from the whole of who they were—them, the Cullens, my family, never my family.

I didn't _want_ to see, and mostly my blindness was successful. Sometimes, though, the numbing comforter got yanked back and I'd _look_, and there was that initial shock, and the dread, and then the fear, and inevitably _what_ I feared: the pain. Very sharp and very constant, a needle pricking between my fingers, knives stabbing very precisely over my heart, nails clawing at my eyes, a boulder smashing through my mid-section, a fist punched into my throat.

There were never tears. For this I felt a bizarre gratitude and a ballooning relief that almost bordered on giddiness. It lasted whole moments, _one Mississippi two Mississippi three Mississippi. _It was the only differentiation in the pattern, the quartet, _shockdreadfearpain._

It was lunchtime. I never ate lunch in the cafeteria anymore. It was only a threat to the numbness. I'd made that mistake, in the beginning. I didn't even hate Jessica and Lauren. Nor Mike, though his heroism had hurt much, much more than it had helped. I didn't hate anybody. I sat outside in the rain and didn't eat and all I hated was having to feel.

And we were dealing with that, the numbness and I. There were only those little slips, and they were becoming less frequent. Yes, we were getting a handle on the situation...and then everything would be okay.

* * *

I was never quite sure how I got to classes. Sometimes I remembered, I was _here_ and then I walked _there_. Sometimes I saw the bottoms of jeans or the corners of an expensive jacket, dripping wet, or dark hair, or a full bottom lip curving. Earlobes, too, a palm, a bag slung over a padded shoulder, rain droplets like jewels. Then I'd be in my class, and I'd wonder, _how did I get here?_ and sometimes I remembered, I was _there_ and then I _saw_, and it would make sense and I'd forget everything again, and sometimes the cycle repeated itself and I only noticed it afterwards.

But that didn't happen often. My feet took me where I needed to be and I was giddily grateful that they needed no direction, and so I didn't question them. I got from point A to point B, which was a stipulation of Charlie's. He had no idea that my feet had a life independent from my brain, but he believed my brain was okay because my feet moved, and that worked for the numbness and I.

It was Biology and I toyed with the idea of giving the numbness a name. It was my true and steady companion, after all. I sat forward and was surprised by the jolt in my legs, I hadn't moved in a long time it felt like, and the surprise jolted the numbness and I saw, fleetingly, a hand around a pen, and a pair of dark curious eyes staring past the silhouette of the other, but then my hair fell forward and so did the numbness.

_Sorry_, it seemed to say. _I'm sorry. I wasn't quick enough there. Sorry._

_It's okay, Christopher. I understand._

I wondered briefly about 'Christopher'. I even wrote it down, _Christopher, _in my Biology handbook. Where did this name come from? I also wondered if I'd just entered the realm of scary. Charlie would not be fooled by my feet if he knew my disassociation had a name. And that that name was _Christopher_, of all things. Ol' Topher, my pal.

So I scratched over the name, concentrating gravely on evening out the lines scribed deeply into the page, so that all that remained was a black, slick block that smeared on my hand when I smoothed over the page with the back of it. I looked at it but then I saw (because I wasn't expecting it _there_, on me, there was nothing left on me was there?) the jagged bow on the back of my left hand, a scar that looked suspiciously like human teethmarks.

Shock. Dreadfear. Pain.

_I'm sorry._

_It's not your fault._

* * *

The trip home from school, or from home to school, was always interesting. I varied my route. Forks only had so many roads, so sometimes I made a mistake and I had to drive miles and miles along sideroads before I found the highway, and by then, hours had passed. It was always good to lose a few hours. It burned a lot of gas but it was worth it. Charlie didn't always agree, but he didn't always know, either.

That afternoon I was on time, though, the dirt track having been a great disappointment. I cooked. I did homework. Christopher lost me some time between those two events, so I was very surprised to hear the cruiser. Charlie greeted me, I greeted Charlie.

"Have a good day?" Charlie asked.

"Yes."

"What did you do?"

"Just school."

"How was gym?" He looked upset, and I didn't understand it.

"Gym was fine." A slender arm stretching, a bare glimpse of a hulked shoulderblade taut beneath a t-shirt.

Charlie pushed his tongue into his cheek and sighed. "Are you sure, Bella?"

"Yes?" I looked up. My dad was frowning at me darkly. "What?"

He pursed his lips but surrendered the information. "It's just...I ran into Dr Cullen today."

The inside of my Trig book swarmed up to claim my attention, all white and feint blue lines.

"Well, I didn't really run into him, he came to see me, at the station."

My forehead met the page and there was darkness.

"He said that...Alice...told him that you fell in gym, on your arm, and that Coach Clapp sent you to the nurse but somehow Alice didn't think you got there."

I couldn't smell Charlie's uniform, the leather, the gun, the rain, the smell of the station, which was sorta sourish but secure, like a locked cell—just the paper and the ink. I'd always liked the smell but it felt horrendously wrong now, like it had admitted something forbidden and shameful.

"Bella?"

"I'm fine."

"Dr Cullen was worried about fractures—Alice was sure you were in pain..."

_Christopher?_

_Yes, we fell. _

_It hurt?_

_Yes, it still does._

But if I paid attention to _that_ pain, then I'd have to pay attention to _all_ the pain. I remembered the first few days. Well, I didn't remember so much as felt. You couldn't forget an abyss that black.

"I'm fine. I took some Tylenol."

"Let me see your arm, Bella."

The book disappeared, and I smelled the station. Charlie took my arm and Christopher blinked away because there was hurt, and he only just managed to contain the hurt acknowledged.

"Bella." Charlie strangled my name, a hopeless and fearful sound, thick in his throat. It was frightening. "It's... We have to get you to the ER."

"I'm fine. It's just a little swollen."

"Here's your jacket. Come on."

"Dad, I'm fine."

Charlie turned around in the hallway. He was too big for the space, really, but I only just noticed. "You're not fine," he said. He strangled the words again and they blanketed everything but the actual injury. He looked so defeated.

My stomach twisted unpleasantly, and my eyes pricked with defiant tears, but Christopher was unrepentant:

_They're not for _him_, they're for Charlie, and that's okay_. And: _I'm sorry that I can only work for you._

I took my jacket.

* * *

The ER was very white and very familiar. I kept getting glimpses of things—a plastic plant, a sign, a nurse's stalkings, Charlie's hand, the tip of my sneaker, a tile peeling from the wall, the rail jutting from the ceiling, the dusty curtain that hung from it and finally, the flap of a white jacket over sand-pale pants.

"Carlisle," Charlie said. He used his professional voice. I assumed this was in honour of discovering my secret. "I've had a look at her arm and it doesn't look good, it's blue and swollen..."

"Let's have a look. Tell me if it hurts at all."

I saw a neatly-clipped nail and the edge of a wristwatch, then the curl of blond hair in a pale neck, then the peeling tile on the wall again.

"Does it hurt, Bella?" Carlisle asked after a while (a flickering light, a stack of forms, a dog-eared _Vanity Fair_), voice laden with concern and something else, something like panic.

"I took some Tylenol."

Wrinkled forehead, lashes over a sombre golden eye, lips pressed together in worry.

"I'm sure it's a hairline fracture. We'll have to take some X-Rays to be sure."

"Of course." This was Charlie again. He added, uncertainly, "Bella?"

"It's fine," I said.

The edge of a clipboard and a pale blue shirt somewhere behind it. "Charlie, why don't you get a start on those forms? I'll take Bella for the X-Rays."

Charlie nodded. The tiles began moving beneath my feet. _Good show, boys!_ I thought, because I could feel Charlie stare after me. I was proud of my feet, bizarrely fond and proud. The one part of my body that was still fighting on my behalf, unlike my treacherous brain, my frantic heart, my sweaty palms, my moist eyes.

We were around the second corner when Carlisle spoke.

"How have you been doing, Bella?"

A beautiful, strong wrist. A silver clasp on a polished black shoe. The edge of a trolley wheeling past. Dirt accumulated in the corner of a door.

"It's fine."

Carlisle was quiet, fingers splayed on greyish-blue, holding a door open for me. He had big hands.

"As I understand, you missed school a few weeks back." His voice was a deep, deep pool of concern, as light as that abyss had been dark. "Have you been sleeping well? Eating well?"

Alice had been feeding him information, I only realized it then. Shock—I saw Carlisle's face, reflected in a window. It was dark outside, and raining. Dread. Fear. Pain.

"I'm fine."

"Bella." He stopped me. We were just outside the X-Ray department. It was quiet, almost deserted—it was late after all. I saw a coalescing pattern on a curtain and a dripping faucet before all I could see was him. His face had that way of claiming your attention. It was gold magnified.

"Yes?"

He debated something within himself, that much was obvious, and the decision he reached made his eyes sad—that, too, was obvious, so I repeated, "I'm fine."

He stared at me for several seconds, a long, penetrating look. The numbness was all but gone, and I felt all the accumulated sadness begin to seep up in the face of this man (like that dirt hurried into a corner, I was all corners). _His_ father. Finally Carlisle nodded.

"Let's take a look at your arm."

* * *

The next morning, I was early to school because Charlie had to drop me off. He idled the cruiser on the curb, watching while my dutiful feet took me into the red-bricked buildings. I turned and waved, an attention that got me an approving wave in return. Not that that had been my design. I just felt more _aware_ today, like I'd slept off a motherload of Tylenol I hadn't known I'd taken until just that morning.

Christopher was very quiet, like Carlisle's frank questions had driven him into seclusion. This frightened me—I felt exposed, like I was out in the open with a firing squad circling me. I felt vulnerable to other people's eyes, and look they did. I didn't know whether it was a new thing or had been on-going, because today for the first time, I was looking _back_.

My feet, with newly and unappreciated help from my eyes, got me to my first class—English. I walked into the room, confident that I'd be the first person there, but I was wrong. A pale face with golden eyes, reddish-brownish hair in disarray, full mouth set in stony anger. For one moment (to which my heart spluttered in supplication) I saw him as a whole: the face, the neck, the body, the arms, the legs, the cold expression, the hostility, the clamped fists, it all melded into _Edward Cullen_. And his were the eyes I feared the most. It was like looking down the barrel of the gun that kept shooting me in the heart, the reflection in the blade that twisted in my chest.

But then my foot hit the ground and he fell back into unattached pieces: Adam's apple bobbing quickly, the line of a smooth jaw locking, slender fingers fluttering on a knee. I turned my back on him, sliding into my seat. I carefully set down my bag, took out my books, and hid my arm as much as I could.

I could still feel it when he looked at me, though. I could imagine the eyes bestowing the stare, but couldn't figure out _why_ he was staring. Pity, perhaps, and anger, at my hideous human frailty. How dare I break an arm, after all? Was I trying to prove his point, that he was strong and that I was weak, and that the two were opposites, but not complementary?

I felt the sweat in my hands and the stare on my back and I wanted the numbness back desperately. But how? How did I generate that feeling?

The corner of my book. A chewed fingernail. The scuffed edge of the desk. A paper ball on the floor. The stub of the teacher's desk. A tile cracked thinly down the middle. A half of a poster. A rain-splattered window.

Opportunity.

* * *

_Christopher?_

_I'm here, honey. I'm working my way in._

I could feel the rain seep quickly through my clothes and the cold soaking onto my skin. I shuddered, both from the chill and from victory—I'd been right. It was working already, wending its way into my system, blurring the sharp edges of that morning's recall. Soon the images would be foggy, and then I'd wake up and find myself somewhere and I'd have to think hard to remember how I'd gotten there...and then everything would be okay.

The forest was a townhall of noises, discordant but beautiful in their way, and soon it was just a thrumming in my ears, the _drip-drip_ and constant rustle. And when the rain stopped some time later—I wasn't sure how much time later, how had I gotten here anyhow?-the silence pressed into my ears, like I was in a shopping center in Phoenix the day before Christmas. The stillness was so pervasive it was _crowding_, though these trees looked like they couldn't ever be _crowded_. They were old, weathered, experienced. I was inconsequential.

That idea appealed to me. To be inconsequential, truly and completely. Insignificant. We all were, really, in the greater scope of things—our supposed majesty rose from our understanding that we were worth something, actually worth something. It cast humanity's claim to superiority in doubt I thought. _Look at these trees and tell me you're superior. Believe that you're something in their presence. _

Soon the light started to snuff out—there was too much cloud for shadows to lengthen, like back in Phoenix; it was just a gradual shift across a spectrum of gray until it reached black—and then I was on the shoulder of a road. I wasn't sure where I was—this was simply where the hiking path ended. I stood for some time, thinking. There was the cellphone Charlie had insisted I carry with me, after my first deviation to school had ended ambiguously several weeks before, but I didn't want to have to call him. Christopher couldn't blank out the guilt.

So I started walking. The plan was to find a sign and go from there. I'd been at it for a while when headlights grew suddenly behind me. I glanced over my shoulder, then moved a little way into the cover of the trees, but it was too late—the car had braked audibly and pulled over. The headlights streamed into the dusk. My legs, so trusty, felt numb—previously impervious to Christopher's presence, they chose that moment to give in to the seduction of oblivion.

I stumbled and fell.

"Bella?"

Dirty trainers, faded jeans, a smear of black grease. A brown hand. The silky points of long black hair.

"Jacob?"

"Bella?"

Our disbelief was trying to outdo each other.

"Are you alright? You fell." He didn't wait for a signal, he just bent down and pulled me up by my good side. "What are you doing out here? Where's the truck? Did it give you trouble? I didn't see it, I've been up and down here twice."

I blinked at him.

"Test-driving my car. The Rabbit," he reminded me. "What happened to your arm?" he asked immediately, pointing at the sling. He waited for me to answer. It took a few seconds to rearrange the jumbled mess in my head.

"I fell. In gym."

"I'm not surprised." He smiled. I hadn't seen a smile like that in a long while. It was like his entire _being_ joined in on the mirth—his eyes, his bright teeth, his chest, it all just beamed, unrepentantly happy.

"Yeah." I grimaced.

"You sure you're okay? Where's the truck?"

"I went for a walk and I...got lost."

His casual interest was replaced comically easy with genuine concern. His brow furrowed and he looked at me for a few seconds longer than was normally polite. "I'll take you back to La Push. I'm not sure the Rabbit can make it to Forks just yet," he said finally, having completed his assessment.

Of course, Charlie and Billy talked. I shuddered to think what Jacob had surmised was wrong with me. Perhaps the same as _him_. Weak. Slow.

"Actually, Charlie doesn't know I went for a...a hike. I'm not sure he'd react well, what, with the arm. To be honest, I sort of bunked..."

Jacob nodded, totally unconcerned. "We'll think of something, then. While we drive," he added. "You look wet. Where's your coat?"

"I...forgot it."

Jacob gave me a shrewd, sideways sort of look. "Maybe Charlie's right not to react well to your hiking."

I smiled at this, without quite knowing why. Christopher was as surprised as I was; he was all silent gawking.

"Yeah. Maybe you're right."


	2. Chapter 2

2.

We debated several possible versions of the same story—that Jacob and I met in a way that had nothing to do with him finding me on the side of a road miles from Forks, shivering and bloodless. When we reached La Push, which was much the same as the little I remembered from visits when I was younger, we tested it out on Billy first.

"Bella," Billy said, rolling from the kitchen when Jacob and I busted into the small, red house. He didn't sound surprised to see me, really—just relieved. Of course I knew the reason behind that relief. Charlie would have told him that I no longer spent time with the Cullens. Billy was probably thrilled.

Jacob, however, looked a little confused at his father's tone, but he didn't say anything—he just said, "I made it all the way to Forks, dad, but the Rabbit overheated..."

"So you went to the Swans'," Billy concluded, nodding in a self-satisfied way. He added, per explanation, "Charlie's been phoning around, looking for you. He forgot to pick you up from school. I told him-"

"I walked home. He's been phoning? Weird." I pulled my cellphone from my pocket. The sound was turned off. When the screen lit up, I had three missed calls. "Nothing," I said. "Told him this stupid thing is useless."

"You don't like cellphones?" Billy asked, sounding grave and giving his son a look. "Jake here loves his."

"It's okay," Jacob said, like it wasn't really—like he, too, found it a nuisance. He seemed embarrassed, and shifted his weight when I looked at him.

_Oh_. I felt stupid for only catching on then. I hadn't thought about that sort of thing in a while—the dynamics, boy/girl... Not even with _him_. It hadn't felt like the usual equation anyhow. It had felt stronger, deeper, more intense. I hadn't felt like a girl. Edward hadn't seemed like a boy.

"You should give me your number, Jake," I said. I hoped that I sounded normal. "Then at least I'd have someone to text," I added. I blushed then, because my voice sounded very honest, and kind of forlorn.

Billy smiled slowly, warmly, like a fire had been lit behind his skin. Jacob's cheeks darkened and he ducked his head, saying, "Yeah, of course."

"I'll phone Charlie and tell him you're here."

"Thanks, Billy."

"Sure thing Bella. I'm glad you came over." He smiled and his skin crinkled.

"Wanna watch TV?" Jacob asked, leading me into their tiny living room. "It's not a flatscreen, but..."

There was the smile again, on cue, as perfect as my feet had been, but less fickle. "Anything but sport, please," I said.

Jacob grinned. "Sure, sure..."

It took me a few minutes of staring blankly at the TV, listening to Jacob breathe and chatter, to realize why this felt so comfortable, so different from my everyday life these past few weeks. Here, I could see everything about everyone. They weren't pieces, they were whole people, and it didn't hurt to look at them.

* * *

"Nice day out today," Charlie remarked, stirring his coffee meditatively and staring out through the kitchen window.

I looked up from my cereal, taking in the misty quality of the light. It wasn't quite sunny yet, but the clouds were thinning—soon there would be as much full sun as Forks could handle. My stomach dropped, but then whooped. There would be no rain today, and no pieces.

"Yes. It's almost too bad it's school." I sounded funny.

"You're very cheerful this morning," Charlie observed. He said it with suspicion. I guessed I couldn't blame him.

I shrugged. "Like you said, it's a nice day out."

"Your kind of weather," he agreed.

"Do you think you'll find the bear today?" I asked, and then felt unexpectedly proud of myself. _Look at you, conversing!_

Charlie shrugged to conceal his surprise. He probably hadn't thought I was listening last night, when he told Billy about the missing hikers and the blood.

"Maybe, if the sun holds and we find new tracks."

"You'll be careful, right?" I was worried; the anxiety coursed through me, stronger because it had been on such a tight leash before.

"Always am." He swallowed down the last of his coffee and rinsed out the mug, asking, "Ready to go? I might not be able to pick you up this afternoon-"

"That's okay. I'll walk again." My cheeks stayed mercifully bloodless at the "again".

He grimaced. "I've asked Jake to pick you up. La Push doesn't have school today, so..."

"Lucky them," I remarked, scrambling to understand the lightness in my stomach. "But how? The Rabbit-"

Charlie grinned, eyes crinkling. "The Rabbit should be fine. I'm sending Jake parts, he promised he'd have it ready. Don't know when we'll catch this thing. Didn't want you to have to foot it again, you might break a leg or something." He said this dryly.

"I'm not _that_ incapacitated," I grumbled.

He smiled again. "Sure, Bells. Do you have your jacket?"

I was early again, but much calmer than the day before. For one, no part or piece of the Cullens would be there. It was Friday; no doubt they'd concoct a story about going hiking or camping. For another, I'd be seeing Jacob that afternoon. Maybe if he didn't have anything else to do, we would hang out. I hadn't done anything on a Friday night in a long time.

Jessica neither, apparently. She talked about it all through Biology. By the end of it, as she and Lauren cleared their table and walked out, I leaned over to Angela and said, "I don't think Mike took the hint."

Mike was laughing with Ben, planning some sort of lunchroom assault on Tyler.

Angela seemed startled, but quickly righted herself, for which I was infinitely grateful. "No, probably not. He's had a lot on his mind."

"What's wrong?" There was the guilt again. Mike was my friend and I hadn't even realized that something was up. I stared at him pensively.

"He doesn't talk about it." Angela shrugged, looking regretful. "I actually wondered if you knew."

I dropped my eyes to my bag, the blush seizing my cheeks and shaking them red. "I haven't really spoken to him since I quit Newton's," I admitted.

Angela squeezed my shoulder, somehow managing it without patronization. "I'm sure he understands. You've had a lot to deal with."

"It's no excuse."

"Are you better?" she asked quietly.

"I feel better," I said.

"I'm glad." She smiled. "I've missed you."

I didn't quite know what to say to that, so I just smiled in return.

I still spent lunch outside, but I wasn't alone—Angela sat down with me, and the sun was just about as bright as it could be. Ben and Mike found us and sat down, too. Mike was a little guarded, but after a few minutes of enthusiastic conversation about the weather, he perked up.

I hadn't talked so much in weeks, and I didn't even _say_ much. Mostly I replied: what I thought about that assignment, how I'd scored so high on my Romeo and Juliet essay, what I did the previous weekend, had I heard that song.

"It's a remix," Mike said, "wait, I'll play it for you."

He hooked the earpiece of his iPod into my ear before I could protest and the intro of the song ballooned up. He held the other earpiece to his own ear. He had to lean in a little.

We were back to pieces: a bandage of gelled blondish hair, a fat earlobe, a freckle on his forehead, a bit of mis-shaved stubble just under his chin, a silver ring around his left index finger. I leaned back, popping out the earpiece.

"Yes, I've heard this one," I lied. I was happy my voice came out strong; generally it was difficult speaking when someone was gutting you.

"Pretty cool, isn't it?" he asked, oblivious to my innards flapping from the giant hole in my abdomen.

"Yeah."

"Muse is great. Hey, Ben, tell Bella about..."

I was bleeding out—my hearing went dull. _Don't worry._ Christopher was still there, comforting. _In a few hours you'll see Jacob and you won't have to see in pieces. It'll be okay. Everything is okay. Deep breath. Everything is okay._

And, everything _was_ okay. My hearing came back. They were still speaking, Angela, Ben, and Mike, so _that_ was good—no one had noticed that I'd blanked out.

"What the hell was that?" Mike asked suddenly. I turned, a few seconds out of pace, to follow his stare to an indeterminable spot in the forest encroaching on the school from all sides.

"That was loud," Ben said. "Maybe a branch snapped?"

"Maybe it's the bear," Mike said, snorting.

Angela and I looked at each other. "Maybe we should go inside," she suggested, shooting the green shade a slightly panicked look.

"_Come on_, Angie," Ben said, circling her bony shoulders with his arms. "I'll protect you." He smiled; she couldn't help but smile back, it was automatic, essential.

Like with Jacob.

The bell went. "Guess we'll have to fight off the bear some other time." Mike heaved a dramatic sigh. "We have Trig now, don't we, Bella?" he inquired. I got the idea he only wanted a response from me to make sure that I was still speaking.

"Unfortunately," I admitted.

He laughed. "Trig or the bear?" he asked.

"Definitely the bear."

Mike laughed again. I thought it was because of the novelty of my communicating, rather than anything I actually said.

"Here, I'll take your bag," he offered. "How's your arm? That was a nasty fall..."

I let myself be ushered away, but something made me glance back at the forest. Something about this was familiar. Something about it made me think of _him_: clenched jaw, guarded eyes, white knuckles. But I wasn't sure what. Jane Austen? But that made no sense. Why did it feel like a dream, half-remembered?

* * *

I was curiously aware of every footstep I took between my last class and the parking lot, but my diligence was rewarded—we saw each other at the same time. Jacob straightened from against his car, his arms falling to his sides; my face did that thing again, that automatic unthinking thing—smiling, tentatively, but genuinely.

"Who the hell is that?" Mike asked. I looked at him, feeling the frown on my forehead from the inside, wondering about his tone of voice. It was surprised and cautious and..._scared_.

"Who?" Ben asked, but then he, too, saw Jacob. "The La Push kid? Whoa."

"That's Jacob," I said, almost defensively. "He's my ride home."

Mike's eyes widened a little before his face settled into derisive scorn. "How old is he?" he asked, working to sound casual.

I had to think about that one. "Fifteen, sixteen. Why?"

Ben made a low whistling sound. We'd come to a virtual halt, just under the eaves of the last building. Jacob waved. I returned it.

"See you guys Monday?"

There was a rumble of assent. Angela gave me a quick hug and I left the small group behind. Jacob greeted me enthusiastically.

"What was all that about?" he asked, as we got in.

"They just wondered who you were."

"What did you tell them?" He peered at me from the corner of his eyes.

"That you're my ride home."

"Oh," he said, then started the car and backed out.

"Why?"

"Why what?" His voice sounded like it had been rained on.

I could see I'd made a mistake, but honestly, they hadn't asked me what I thought about him. But even if they had, what would I have told them? That I'd seen this boy once and smiled with him and that he made me feel better because I could really _look_ at him? His whole face, not just a disjointed nose or lips or eyes?

And thinking about that only made me more glad to see him. It was all very bizarre. So I said, honestly, "I'm happy to see you," and then worried that I'd freak him out.

"Happy to see your carpool?" But he smiled self-deprecatingly.

"No. Happy to see my friend."

"Am I your friend, Bella?" he asked, mock-seriously, but there was something more behind the question, something running beneath it.

"I really hope so, Jake, because I haven't got any plans for tonight, and I need a friend to hang out with." The smile showed up again, small and happy.

He smiled, too. The sun didn't have anything on that smile.

"What did you want to do?" He glanced at me quickly before speeding past a lumbertruck.

This brought me up short. "Nothing in particular. What were your plans for tonight?"

"I was going to fine-tune my car, but that'll be boring."

"Not at all." I smiled again. "It'll be fun. We'll get pizza. Charlie can come over later."

Jacob gave me another look, longer this time, and longer, I thought, than strictly safe—we were still driving at this point.

"What?" I asked.

"It's nothing," he said. He pulled onto the curb outside my house.

"Would you like to come in?" I asked, but then worried about the boy/girl dynamics. "I just want to put on dry socks," I admitted, hoping that this would clear any illusions, like sun cleared mist. Jacob laughed all the way up to my room.

I only noticed it when he was _in_ my room, my small, familiar room. He moved from one foot to the other, cautioning himself against the sloping ceiling, while I pulled off my old socks. I paused mid-process, possibly to gawk.

"Jacob, you're huge!"

He was embarrassed; he gathered his long hair and pulled it back into a ponytail at the base of his skull, his cheeks darkening. "Six two," he said, and pushed his chest out a little.

His chest wasn't so small, either. He still had the lanky build of a teenager, but there was definitely muscle there now, under his skin—wiry, but not bulky.

"I didn't even know La Push _has_ a gym."

He laughed, sitting down on my bed, which squawked in protest. "La Push doesn't have a gym."

"But where did all this come from?" I touched a bicep, then remembered myself—it was just too easy to be comfortable with Jacob, and that wasn't necessarily a good thing. I was clear on the boundaries only because I was the one setting them.

He shrugged. "Genes I guess." He was very nonchalant about it.

I gave his physique a sidelong look but said nothing. He laughed again.

He leaned against the counter in the kitchen while I made his growling stomach a sandwich, chattering at me about his school. On the ride to La Push, we talked about his friends. While he was working on the car (I sat on a lawn chair a safe distance away from any kind of dangerous object—spanners, wrenches, deflated tires, etc), the conversation turned to his family. The point was, the conversation flowed. There were no strange, awkward silences; there were no times I couldn't recall what he'd said last. I was actually interested. I _wanted_ to know about him and his life.

It got dicey when he began reciprocating the questions, though. I steeled myself for questions about _him_, but it surprised me when Jacob started on Mike. Was he the blond guy from the parking lot, the marshmallow-looking one?

"You've met him," I pointed out. "He—we—a group of us—were here before, don't you remember?"

"Oh, yeah," Jake said. "The day at the beach. We should go back there some time," he continued. I hoped he hadn't seen me flinching. Of course, when I thought about that day, I remembered the discovery I'd made—about the Quileute enemy, the cold ones, the Cullens.

"What do you think?" he asked, when I didn't immediately respond. "This weather is supposed to last the whole weekend."

"That'd be great," I said. And there was the smile again, instantaneous, undesigned. With the blood still seeping from the fresh set of wounds (_shockdread. Fearpain_), I didn't particularly care that I might be giving the wrong impression with my enthusiasm. I just wanted to continue to feel this way, to _see_ this way.

"Great." Jacob grinned. Not like he had to, and it reached all the way up into his eyes and lingered there long after the actual smile had gone.

* * *

The rest of the weekend was sunny, as Jacob had predicted, but by Monday morning the rain was back, beating against the windows in fistfuls to make sure we couldn't ignore its return. I stared at it resentfully, like it had personally stolen my weekend away. This was ironic: before, weekends had been the bane of my existence—in its own way, school had been a kind of blessing... It was something to do, and I got to see pieces of _them_ and so rest assured that it _had_ all happened, that the way I felt wasn't the irrational leftovers of a strange, haunting dream, but the reality, _my_ reality.

And for the exact same reasons, of course, school was a curse.

I felt the curse part more strongly today.

I wondered about this as I got ready, gingerly dressing around my arm, making sure I took my jacket and had my cellphone before going downstairs. By the time Charlie and I were having breakfast, I'd decided that it was because my weekend had been so _normal_. I'd spent the whole of Saturday with Jake, first at the beach and then in his garage, and Sunday he and Billy had come over to watch a game. That was what most people's weekends were like, after all, not studies in agony or shades of numbness.

"Good weekend," Charlie remarked, like he'd caught the flavour of my thoughts.

I nodded and scooped up a spoonful of Cheerios.

"Did you and Jake have fun?"

"Yes."

"I didn't know you were into cars." He smiled knowingly.

"I'm not," I said. "But I like watching Jake work. He's so...handy."

Charlie grinned and blushed, and I blushed in return.

"I just mean-"

He chuckled. "I know, Bells."

We ate in silence, but it was companionable rather than cold or strained or awkward.

"I guess," Charlie began, but then tried to drop it.

"You guess what?"

I could see that for one teensy moment, Charlie wished I was back to my zombie likeness—in that state, I hadn't noticed _anything_. Either that or he wished he'd rather shot himself in the foot.

"I guess the...Cullens will be back today. Mark said they went camping, but I bet it rained out."

I nodded and chewed some cereal around the hands fastened around my throat, trying to crush my windpipe, then asked, "Is Jake still picking me up?"

"Yeah. He might be a little late, though. His school gets out earlier but it's-"

"Fifteen miles. That's okay. I'll get a start on my homework."

"Don't walk," Charlie cautioned me.

"I won't."

"I'm serious, Bells. The last animal attack was close to town."

Charlie's brow was furrowed and he looked older than usual, so I nodded. "I'll wait for Jake. Promise."

He nodded at his coffee mug and the companionable silence continued.

By the time we reached school, I was already looking forward to its close...and I realized, as I wandered across the parking lot, hitching my bag over my shoulder, that that was dangerous. I really liked Jacob—I did. He was happy and generous and kind and funny—but I couldn't _be_ with him. Not all of me, anyway, not while bits of me still got killed off whenever I remembered too well.

I couldn't know when I would stop feeling that way and I couldn't string Jacob along until I did, either. It wasn't fair. Didn't I know well what it felt like, being strung along? A plaything, a novelty, a diversion? I couldn't subject anybody to that, least of all Jacob. He was the sun.

Which left me in a quandary. How long had it been since I'd looked forward to _anything_? Did I really have to give it up? I knew the answer, _the right thing to do, _but could I do it?

Maybe—and I knew I was trying to broker a deal between my ego and my conscious—maybe I didn't _have_ to do anything drastic. It was still early days, after all. And people got over this sort of thing (there was the click as the gun was loaded) all the time. I wasn't the first nor the last person (the first shot, the second, the thirdfourthfifth) to get dumped. In an abstract way, it wasn't that bad.

Only...

Of course it was that bad. I had to go sit down on one of the wet benches and catch my breath. It was hard work, when the hands just kept on throttling, but I breathed and my lungs filled and it was cold and what was I doing again?

Oh, yes. Trying to convince myself that I could get over him.

But.

The crux of it was, and it made no rational sense whatsoever, _people did this all the time_—it hadn't been just a boy/girl thing. I hadn't been just a girl, and he—Edward—would _never_ be just a boy. For a few weeks, how long had it been anyway, how'd I get _here_?-I'd been singled out, but now the favour was over, and I was just a girl again, only I didn't know how to be _that_—hadn't ever, in fact, that was why things with Edward had been so great: I'd finally fit in.

But that wasn't all of it. The thing was, and this felt like the only truth in the world—he was _Edward_. How _couldn't_ I love him? In what universe _couldn't_ I love him? And how could I ever, ever, ever, when I still had thoughts and feelings, _not_ love him?

_Edward_—the noose slipped over my head, rough against my skin—_I love you._

I hung like a ragdoll. _Strung along_ I thought. I'd strung myself along. How had I ever believed that I was anything but a stupid girl? How had I convinced myself that it was real, that it would _stay_ real? How had I convinced myself that I could deserve him?

When I came to, there were a lot more cars and a lot more people. I looked around and realized I was shivering. I blinked; I hadn't noticed that time had passed, did time pass when you were drowning?

I reached for my bag, and froze.

A pair of silver-coloured pumps, almost too dressy for school. A black legging. The square tip of a leather shoe, dug into the earth. Long lashes around a burning golden eye. A slender wrist holding my bag out to me.

"Bella?" Alice's voice didn't quite chime—it sounded like a funeral procession had just been signalled to start.

* * *

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews! :) I wasn't sure whether I ought to continue with this story—I've written up to about Chapter 4—but I'll work at it. Please review! Thoughts and comments are not just welcomed, but loved and given knitted mittens and chicken soup =P**

**This chapter was slightly Jake-centric, but the next features more Cullens for the canon shippers. Will update soon x**


	3. Chapter 3

3.

_It's okay. It's not them—there are just pieces. Do you see? _Christopher was adamant that I should try._ An ankle. A pair of fingers. Wrinkles in a blue shirt. Hollow of a throat. Upperlip. A bracelet. _

My hand came up and took my bag, and there was a small pause when I struggled to slip it over my shoulder. A subtly-muscled forearm twitched, but I turned away, and my trusty feet found the direction to my first class and began walking. My legs didn't tremble.

"Bella?" Alice was next to me. I could smell her, and see corners of her face and her hair. "Can we—I—please speak with you? It's urgent. Bella, please."

I stopped walking and waited, staring straight ahead. She moved into my line of vision, so I adjusted my line of vision: an arch, a bird, a gutter filled with debris.

"Look at me?" Her tone surprised me (shockdreadfearpain; I was firmly entrenched in the pain...at least it was cold and it was raining) because it was almost desperate, and Alice never sounded desperate, just prepared. So whatever she had _seen_ left her no choice but this desperation. This almost piqued my curiosity, but I found myself far more interested in walking away, feeling nothing, and then forgetting it had ever happened.

And how did I explain to her that I couldn't look at her because she was just a jumble of disjointed features and not an actual face anymore? How did I articulate, briefly and without dying violently several times, that I'd stopped seeing when I had to look at Edward walk away?

And he was there. Behind us. I could taste the honey lilac summer scent in my nostrils—it lingered like it had never left and it _had_ because I distinctly remembered him walking away, that one moment, almost a whole second perhaps, that his back was turned on me, and then he was gone, and I was left alone seeing things in pieces. A leaf. A trampled flower. A patch of moss. Dirt. Blackness.

"What do you want?" I spoke well for someone who had just suffered immense brain trauma, I thought, not to mention my heart being torn out, not in one clean go but in continuous scoops of pain, like it was a feast and I was the main course.

Alice resolved on intruding in my vision. She almost reached out to touch my shoulders, like she wanted to solder me to this one spot, but thought better of it—perhaps because she _saw_ (lucky her) that touching the corpse would reanimate it, only it wouldn't be Bella Swan, beloved daughter and friend, standing there, but a monster.

"Something's happened," she said. "It might affect you and Charlie."

Her eyes shot past me, at a point higher than my head, and then I felt _him_, close enough that I smelled his breath...it was almost in my neck. I turned my head a little (it was more of an involuntary twitch) and saw part of his chest and his Adam's apple, and his stance: protective, familiar, too familiar. A train hit me.

_Christopher?_

_I'm here, baby._

_It hurts._

_I know. But listen. It's not them, it's not him, it's just pieces! Like a puzzle. You don't have to build the puzzle if you don't want to._

_It hurts so much._

_It's just pieces, sweetie. Look._

I looked and he was right. Relief washed over me and the hook behind my heart relaxed and disappeared. It wasn't them—indeed. It wasn't Alice, just a collection of colours and shapes. It wasn't _him_. It wasn't _them_. It was just pieces.

Someone called after me but my feet didn't stop.

* * *

The pieces of them were a constant the rest of the day, intruding from the backdrop (_backdrop addresses cowboy; on your face a porcelain grin_). I wanted to stop noticing; I wanted to lose time between classes and not quite remember where I was, but now that I'd surfaced, the pool I'd been drowning in was gone, evaporated. But Jacob's sun wasn't here now, just them and their skins that pulled the clouds after them.

"What's up with the Cullens?" Mike demanded. It was lunchtime. I remembered every splintering second that had brought me here, and could foresee every splintering moment until my release.

"Yeah, they keep looking over here," Ben said. "Are you and, uhm, are you back-?" But he couldn't finish the sentence so it just hung there, like a dirty ragged thing flapping in the wind. My guts twisted around the blade.

"No." I didn't know what my voice sounded like, but it was followed by an uncomfortable shifting.

"I need more pizza," Mike said suddenly, his tone unchanged. Ben sprang up and dodged after him, shooting Angela what I thought was a repentant look. I felt sorry for her, too, getting left with me and whatever had been in my voice.

Angela stared anxiously at her hands, resolving. "Alice spoke to me in Spanish," she admitted, like Mike and Ben hadn't left—continuing her love's conversation. "She kept asking me questions about you. About how...you are. She was very worried."

Our eyes met; hers were concerned.

"I wouldn't have brought it up, but she asked me something and it..." But apparently she couldn't find the words. I felt a rush of sympathy for her, and guilt that bordered on self-hatred, having _me_ as a friend. So I tried to make it easier for her, even though talking about it felt like swallowing coals.

"What did she ask? It's okay, Angela. You can tell me."

Angela looked at me for a few even moments before framing her words around the anxiety and mortification in her posture.

"She asked me if I thought you were suicidal."

Shot.

"She thinks that maybe you're not dealing so well with...everything."

Lynched.

"They're worried. She and..."

Starved.

"She said she saw something that made her think... Bella?"

Decapitated. My jaw still worked, though.

"Suicidal?"

"Yeah. I told her," her voice got some spirit and her eyes flashed, very unusual for gentle Angela, "that you were dealing on your own terms and that your friends" something about the way she said it made me think she'd said '_real_ friends', "were helping you. Bella." She sounded anxious again, like the steel had been a blush, as quick to drain away as it had risen. "I wasn't lying, was I?"

I met Angela's gaze, wishing I could convey things telepathically. I wished I could let her know how much her standing up for me meant. I wished I could explain to her how much her sitting across from me, still wanting to believe that I wasn't that weak or depressed, that I was _dealing_, and with nothing but contrary evidence stacked against me—how much that meant to me.

I couldn't, though. All I could do was say, "I'm not suicidal, Angela," and mean it, and the words were only for her—whether _they_ could hear them or not was irrelevant.

She smiled, a little sadly. "I'm glad, Bella."

I smiled—it was faint, but it was there, its resolved bolstered by the fact that it wasn't long until I'd see Jacob, and then I wouldn't resent the loss of my pool so much, the pool that had rippled and distorted everything.

"It's the weirdest thing," Angela said, initially addressing her food before looking at me again. "Alice asked me something else. She asked me about...Christopher?" Angela said the name with puzzlement.

"Christopher?" I repeated, my mind rushing blank for a second. Christopher? How in the hell did _Alice_ know about _Christopher_?

_Biology. You wrote me down in your book, remember? They were looking at you. _

_Why?_

_They're _always_ looking at you, haven't you noticed?_

I hadn't. And why did they? Because they thought I was suicidal? What business was it of theirs, anyway? Why the sudden, blistering concern? What had Alice _seen_?

Christopher had no answers for me, and Angela still looked worried.

"Christopher." My teeth were at my lip before I could stop them.

Angela misinterpreted the silence and the mortified rising of blood in my cheeks. She couldn't know that it was because I was frightened, ironically frightened _out of my mind_, that my crutch, my little piece of insanity, the name for my disability, was discovered, by the very ones I wanted most to keep it away from.

"You don't have to say anything," she said, smiling and indicating as much with her hands. "But I thought that you and Jacob...the boy from La Push? You were very happy to see him," she added, per explanation.

"Christopher is just a friend." There was no blood at the lie, but it wasn't spared for the rest: "And Jake..."

Angela nodded—she understood that I didn't quite know what to say about it yet.

"I'm sorry," she said, after some silence. Mike and Ben were a few tables away, harassing Tyler—she waited until I looked away from them, surprised, to go on. "I shouldn't have said anything. About Alice and Edward I mean. I just found it really strange. Alice hasn't spoken to me since... And then it was like nothing had happened, it was like..."

Angela shrugged, scrunching up her mouth, before dropping her shoulders and settling in for what she assumed was another silence. But my head, now that it had broken the surface of the water, now that reality stung like cold air on wet skin, didn't want to let it go, and the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. My voice sounded flatly suspicious.

"Like it was staged?"

Angela frowned a little, first at my tone and then as she considered what I was saying. "Yes, actually."

"Like she rigged the conversation to go a certain way?"

My voice was grim; someone sawed me in half with a lazy but determined arm.

"That's what it felt like." Angela was confused.

"She has a way of doing that... Setting things up to go the way she wants them to."

"Why, though?" Angela's good nature was a natural skeptic.

My shoulders rose like someone was holding me up by them. "To get a certain response, a specific reaction." Which, I realized—it felt obvious then—was _this_ conversation. She'd planned it; if I didn't want to speak to her, she'd have me speak to Angela.

"That's strange," Angela commented, but I could see she still wondered—she looked past my shoulder, probably running through the conversation they'd had in her mind, filtering it through this new information. Whatever she saw—she dropped her gaze and absently pulled her fingers through her camera strap—obviously didn't inspire mistrust in my conjecture. All it could have been was confirmation.

Confirmation of what exactly, though? Alice's motives were usually about her vision. What had she seen that was so alarming she felt the need to break the silence that was all I'd had of her these last weeks?

Or—what _hadn't_ she seen?

She'd asked if I was suicidal. Perhaps it was the absence of my future that baffled her, and not my future itself.

* * *

_O happy dagger, this is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die._

White tiles. The rim of the basin. Uneven lips reflected. A rusted razor blade.

His absence had been a dread disease; I accepted the terms and grieved, but then there was light that day—sunlight, a week afterwards. I'd thought it was improper. Wrong. Mischievous. The light wanted to convince me that it was still there (_I'm here baby_) but the abyss didn't want to let me go. They played tug-of-war and I wrenched from side to side until I saw it. Stillness descended.

Not thinking about it had been like not wishing for a cure. And there it was: shoved into a nook on a dusty glass shelf. I'd reached for it and this breach of the unspoken contract that _You must not harm yourself_ slithered down my back, very, very cold, and that was when I met Christopher.

_Sleep_ he said.

And I'd slept in an icebath and I hadn't had to worry anymore because I was as safely dead as you could be without actually being entombed, but then this coffin of mine was yanked open and now I was in Biology and my cure was hours away and _I didn't know what to do._

Mr Banner entered his classroom, looking darkly like he thought he had a treat for us. Behind my left shoulder there was a shuffle of paper and a creak as something evidently gave way to a vice-like grip, and the soft incantation of Alice's voice.

"It's okay," she whispered. Loud enough for me to hear. Her eyes turned from his to my left shoulder and the consciousness somewhere behind it, with an expectant air that promised nothing good. It was the stare of a doomsday prophet, or a master who thought he'd finally found a protégé.

(I felt ashamed for having considered it. Or not _considered_, really—it was deeper and more instinctive than that, certainly a function of self-preservation despite the fact that it had urged my immediate removal from existence. But I hadn't thought about it in weeks. I hadn't thought and that had been enough to delay this terminal disease.)

Mr Banner unfurled his plot, and like tossing a roll of fabric into our midst said, "Partner up. Two pairs to a group, please. No, Mr Newton," he added preemptively—Mike had moved immediately backward, "a partner who won't just do all the work for you..." He gave me a look over the waving heads of students jumping closer to each other.

I'd never been a fast mover, so I'd only just unknotted my knees from my chair when Alice slided in opposite me, book in hand, dragging her chair and her brother and a determined cheerfulness that would have fooled me if I didn't know her so well—she was pretending she knew exactly how everything would be, that she was confident that all bases were covered (her cheerfulness on that subject was savage, as subtle as a rampaging mother bear), but she wasn't _really_, it was put on, she was frightened.

Something stirred in my stomach, as long dormant as I had been. It was fear, but a particular type of fear—not like the fear of feeling (which was now pouring out, quickening to a crescendo of crashing noise), but a _mortal_ fear. Which was new seeing as I hadn't feared death in a long time and I guessed I still didn't: this was just an automatic reaction, a remnant of when I'd been frightened that something as derogatory as death could keep me from Edward.

We hadn't needed death; apparently life had been quite enough.

I was angry. Oh, I was so angry.

"_What do you think you're doing?_"

"Group work," was Alice's answer. "Mr Banner said."

"Make your own group."

"Two pairs, no dice."

"Leave me alone."

Alice didn't react, which was eerie—my voice was quite as flat as I'd ever heard it. Her face stayed the same: cheerful, purposed, determined. _He_, however, was not as immune—anger, I supposed, at being told what to do by a human, and a weak one. He swallowed and his face changed but I couldn't really tell into what because I didn't know what it had been in the first place. I didn't want to look and I didn't want to see.

Maybe this was the cause.

It would be ridiculous and ironic if _this_ was the cause for Alice's panic, this encounter. All I could think about was _how_—_how_ was I going to go back to anything if there wasn't the cold pool trapping me beneath its surface (I'd floated at the bottom and stared up and there had been light and sparkles on the water and I could see but not enough to hurt), _how_ was I not going to see, _how_ was I going to deal when I saw and _dreadfearpain_ and _how_ would I resist its cure, the one agent that would numb all for ever?

Jacob?

But was he strong enough and moreover, should he be? He owed me nothing.

_You can be his friend._

_I can _only_ be his friend._

_He doesn't know that._

_I know it._

_Not for sure. Not for long. Maybe..._

_But it's _Edward_._

Circles. It wound away in circles that looped steadily bigger until they scrawled across my thought process and by the time I realized I was being spoken to, the class was quiet and Mr Banner was at my elbow.

"Are you okay, just the three of you?"

He looked at me particularly. "It's just today," he added.

"Yes."

"The others have already started." He smiled, not unkindly, and walked off. There was a pause.

"Thinking about Christopher?" Alice asked teasingly. Her tone was light but her eyes burned across my face.

Thinking _to_ Christopher was more accurate, but she needn't know that. I didn't respond in any way. I read over the assignment we'd been given and said, "This is a waste of time. You know all the answers."

"_You're_ here to learn."

"And you're here to pass time. I forget."

She didn't have an answer to that—which was also odd, Alice always had an answer for _everything_—but I couldn't pay attention; my cellphone vibrated in my pocket and I automatically pulled it out. It could only be my mother, my father, or Jacob, and with all of them it was likely to be urgent.

_Hw r u, hun? Hvnt heard 4rm u in a while. Call me. Xx_

_Gona be late_

_Cnt pick u up, sorry. Ive realized wht a waste of tym u r. _

The message _was_ from Jacob but its contents weren't as dire as I'd imagined. He just asked how I was and what I was doing—he, apparently, was in English and bored out of his mind. The last line of his text made my stomach hollow out for a second before it filled with a satisfied pleasure.

_Wana do hmewrk my house?_

Yes, Jacob. You are now the cure. _My_ cure. The cure against the _other_, more _final_, cure. Thank you. From the very depths of my staked-through heart, thank you.

I replied quickly, angling the phone away from the Cullens and keeping it under the table. By the time I looked back up, Alice was watching me with a distinctly sour expression; her brother's, or the bits of it that I saw (furrowed eyebrows, lips turned down at the corners) was displeased.

There was a silence. I put my mobile away and turned my eyes down to the assignment, not really reading it, put projecting onto it images of another comfortable, normal, visually unaffected afternoon, and how warm Jacob was, and his smile, and the funny way he had of playing with his hair when he was concentrating.

"How is your arm?"

The floor was there, the ground, the earth, the crust, the plate, all of it solid, I could feel my feet standing on it all, weighing nothing, but then the mass was gone, not gently peeled away but torn, and I fell, but there wasn't anything to fall onto or into, just nothingness—which was the problem.

Nothingness. Blackness.

His voice was quiet and disturbed.

And how could I not look then, though I would rather have dug out my eyes? _It was Edward_. Irrational, stupid, pathetic as it was—he was still more-than-a-boy and I was still less-than-a-girl, that striking balance that wasn't a balance at all, just a perturbation of my mind. There was no world in which his speaking would not equate to my listening—to absorption, desire, fascination, love, no matter how unrequited or unhealthy or insane it was. He was an addiction. He was a disease. It was in my blood, my bones, my very being, and my cure wasn't here—wasn't a cure at all perhaps, just something to ease the suffering until the malignancy finally claimed me, and it would claim me, when I heard his voice I was so sure of it.

_I'm dying here. _

Angry, tired, desperate.

I looked up.

His face was unchanged but it was all new to me, all the bits swarming for a few, clear, precious moments into a single, uncorrupted picture: the golden eyes with the dark lashes, the straight nose, the wry lips, now anxious, the frown between the dark eyebrows, the way his skin looked—pristine, like unpolluted snow.

"You fell." He sounded so sad. "Why didn't you go to the sickbay? Where did you disapp-" He stopped, looked at his hands, then looked back up. It was strange—he'd paused to compose his face; the expression was guarded and neutral, but the more composure he gained, the more the bits slipped away from each other, his features breaking up like a puzzle.

The lower half of my face was so wrapped around with barbwire that I couldn't answer, though answers there were: It didn't hurt so much. It didn't hurt as much _as_. I wanted to go. My feet took me elsewhere. Lost some time. It wasn't so bad. It didn't hurt so much.

It didn't hurt as much as _this_.

(And why the concern, Edward? It's not your duty to save me from every slip and every fall. It wasn't ever. Got tired of playing that game? I don't blame you. Honestly, I don't.

And: _Oh_. There was a realization:

_He_ wasn't the disease. I was. I was the one addicted. To him, and to that duty he'd had. I'd relied on it. So much, to keep him. So wrong. It was me. Why hadn't I ever seen it before, as clearly as I did now? It was me, _all_ me.)

Now I was the one in pieces. Fracturing into pieces. Sound cut out, and light, like before with _that song_, our song.

Please. Let this be it. It would be so much better for us all if this was it. If I died, naturally—from a broken heart, it was only natural to die from such a thing, wasn't it? Oh, no, no it wasn't—but this was _Edward_.

Was.

_Was_ Edward.

* * *

**A/N: Here it is, finally, sorry for the wait! Thank you for all the reviews, please keep them coming ^_^ I'll try to be more speedy with the next chapter.**

**I hope the suicide bit was clear—Bella considered it after the break-up, but she never went through with it. When reading through it I was worried that it might be a bit confusing, the way Bella's past and present intersect in her mind.**

**Let me know what yall think :)**

**Disclaimer: the characters all belong to Stephenie Meyer. Except for Christoper ~.~**


	4. Chapter 4

4.

_In Memoriam, Isabella Marie Swan_

_Beloved daughter and friend _

I could see it.

In the interim of whatever—I could see it.

How much better it would be. How much worse.

For them, for me, for them.

* * *

I was in hospital for the rest of the week. Exhaustion. Dr Cullen whispered the word to Charlie and you could see Charlie thinking, _This is his fault_ before he said it.

"This is his fault. What was he doing, bothering Bella?"

Dr Cullen's gentle face stiffened and he said, with compassion, "I'm sorry Charlie. Edward just wanted to know how Bella was doing."

"Doesn't he have eyes in his head? He did this to her in the first place!"

Dr Cullen's mouth was just a little defensive—I knew, because as soon as he said Edward, in his voice, _that_ voice, his mouth was all I could make out. Full lips. Kindness in every set of them.

"It's not quite as simple as that, Charlie," he said, and then left.

Wasn't it, though? Perhaps Carlisle meant the vampire/human issue, but that seemed illogical—that wasn't what it was about, really, it was far simpler and far more devastating because of that simplicity—all those hang-ups about mortality had been a guise, a delay. The central issue had been, _He doesn't love you_. I worked to think it in the present tense—_the central issue is, he doesn't love you._

Still, anymore.

So it was no more complicated than that, no more complicated than usual.

The only complication was _me_, not being able to get past it. How desperately pathetic that I should still be incubated in misery weeks after he'd left me in the forest, partially blind. _Charlie—this isn't his fault. It's mine. I'm defective. _

I just didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to move on. I wanted to—so badly. I wanted nothing more than to be myself, _normal Bella_, to have friends and hobbies and college and later a career. I couldn't even _see_ those things now. All I had were reflections and they were of dark pits without escape.

Maybe I wasn't trying hard enough. I lay thinking this when I heard the murmur of Jacob's voice outside, speaking to Charlie.

"She's asleep."

"I won't wake her."

Maybe I could try harder.

The next moment the heat of him was right next to me. I hadn't heard him walking in. He stood there and I opened my eyes and there was relief and release.

"Jake?"

"Bella."

I'd try harder.

* * *

I saw Jacob often—there wasn't one day he didn't stay the whole afternoon, long into the night, sometimes encamped with homework, sometimes sharing the hard plastic chairs with Charlie, Angela or Mike. The nurses didn't even bother telling him off. It was too obvious that he had a positive effect on me. _It's not just me_ I wanted to say. _It's because he's the sun, that's not my fault is it?_

It wasn't anything to do with me, in all honesty. Jacob was just a constantly happy person, and he shared this with whoever he happened to be with—most frequently now, me. Not that I minded. His russet skin was like a perpetual sunset in the dull, grey room of the ward. He was that feeling you got at the end of a long, happy day: good, satisfied, but slightly melancholy—would you ever have another day such as this?

With him, though, I knew I would.

So how could it be hard work—any work at all—to fall in love with him?

It couldn't, so I tried harder to forget the other. It was easier with Jacob there, but the morning hours, spent mostly solitary, were vast stretches of desert; difficult to get through without wanting water, wanting it badly. And his father's presence didn't help.

Dr Cullen checked in regularly, reserving these visits for when I was alone, or when he thought I was sleeping. He wasn't my doctor anymore, but he still routinely went over my chart—once, he felt my pulse and the familiar quality of his smooth, cold skin unpicked almost every stitch that Jacob had worked around my heart. He asked me short questions—how did I feel, was I sleeping soundly, did I feel tired or worn at all. I lied. Only it didn't feel like lying, but _wishing:_ I _wished_ I felt better, slept soundly, and felt vital.

Not quite yet, though. There were still the dreams.

Less often now, than in the beginning—but with the double jeopardy that I now _remembered_ the dreams, and did not just startle awake at night, heart thundering, so sure that he was there, close enough to taste him and touch him. That was all I'd ever remembered. But now... These dreams, these nightmares, weren't particularly frightening in the usual sense.

I was alone in a forest, though the scenery sometimes varied—the meadow, school, my house. I _knew_ I was alone, in the dream. It was an established fact. And yet...it felt as though there was something just beyond my line of vision, something in the closest shadows. When I went to inspect, as I invariably did—_It's Edward! Edward? Wait for me! I love you_—there was nothing. No one. Just more forest, or an empty corridor, or the kitchen at night.

Nothing. Just me and a phantom I couldn't ever catch.

I screamed myself awake sometimes; other times, tears woke me, or Charlie, concerned.

"The nurse tells me you have nightmares." Carlisle looked at me from beyond his clipboard. It was Thursday night, late—outside, the weather was stormy, which was unusual for Forks with its perpetual weeping rain.

I shrugged. I was tube-less and desperate to go home, but they'd insisted I stay out the week, just to be sure.

"If it goes on like this, Bella, we'll have to refer you to a therapist."

My chin jutted out at this—I felt it go and all I could think was, _Thank you for not abandoning me!_ There were still shades of the real me present, after all—they hadn't _all_ adjourned for the term and left behind this exhausted sack of bones, this zombie.

"I know you don't think it's necessary, but Bella." Carlisle was clearly at the end of his reach—he actually made to touch me, but dropped his hand to fasten it around a pen instead. "I can't send you out there until I'm absolutely positive that you aren't out of danger."

"I'm not in danger." I was adamant. "I feel much better."

"_I'd_ feel much better if you'd speak to a therapist." He was so earnest, but my chin was upset that he would suggest such a thing—because I knew who was behind the idea.

"And tell them what exactly? That I'm depressed because my vampire boyfriend left me?"

Carlisle flinched. I felt endlessly bad, but I couldn't regret what I'd said. It felt good to punch back. Finally there was strength in my fists and venom in my mind to drive the blow.

"This would go much better if you all would just leave me alone and stop pretending to care."

"We're not pretending, Bella. I wish...I could explain. But surely you know?" He stared at me, but offered no further explanation—whatever he saw left him dissatisfied and he continued, "I'm sorry, Bella. We don't mean to interfere. We're just concerned. Things...and now." He broke off and shook his head.

"I'm sorry," he repeated. He was apologizing, I realized, for all of it—for the secrets, the lies, the love lost, his son, his daughter, his family, their existence, their natures. And with him the apology didn't seem patronizing—like he really _could_ take it all unto himself, could abolish it by his regret alone.

I didn't know what to say; only my eyes responded. I was horrified to find them wet: it felt like a great discovery, so detached I was from my body.

"It's." It's. That was a good sentence. _It's too bad. It's not your fault. It's wretched. It's over. It's me. It's him. It's not necessary. It's fine._

"It's fine." A better sentence. "It's nothing. Carlisle, it's—I don't need a therapist. I'm sorry. I'm fine. I'll be fine."

He wanted to believe me, very badly, but his voice was full of unknowns when he replied, "Is it really?"

I didn't know what else he was referring to, but it drew him away from my bed. I rolled onto my side and settled in, waiting for sleep and the nightmares and was satisfied on both counts.

* * *

"Ready to go?" Jacob had my bag in one hand and a vase of flowers in the other. It was Friday afternoon and I was finally free from the bright, tinny light of the ward. I tweaked my shoelace and jumped off the bed, feeling happier than I had in weeks. And I knew that for certain because I'd been keeping tabs.

"Yes, I'm ready." My teeth flashed in a smile. Jacob smiled, too—not like he was returning it, but like our grins were activated by the same mechanism.

My feet stepped me forward and my left arm went around Jake's midriff. I had to stand on my toes and bounce a little to plant a quick kiss on his cheek, the skin of which went very dark. Jacob ducked his head when I stood back.

"What was that for?"

"For being you," I said, honestly.

He laughed. "Sure, sure."

"I'm serious."

He looked at me for a moment before he nodded slowly, then he smiled again (and there went my mouth, too, grin deluxe). "I'll do that more often, then."

I rolled my eyes and said, "Sure, sure."

I bent to pick up a card that had fallen off the table next to my bed—a handmade one from Angela—and when I reared up, all the air disappeared and the light imploded so that I was left with these blindspots, so I couldn't see _faces_, only shards of them: Jacob's brow, furrowed, dark eyes glaring, Edward's lips, turned down at the corners.

"Bella? May I—may I speak to you, before you go?"

I concentrated on Jacob. He was the closest and if _this_ was going to change, this I had to work through it. I concentrated and Jacob's face became a whole—_of course_ it was a whole, he was _Jacob, _it wasstupid to think otherwise—and took a deep breath.

My lungs complied and my shoulders squared (_get ready boys, it's a shotgun_) and I turned to face Edward.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Jacob spat it and I thought, _Ahh. That was where all the air got to—into Jacob's lungs, fuelling the fire that he is. _It wasn't an unfair comparison, either—I could feel the heat of him rub against the coolness of the room, only it didn't feel like just temperature—it felt like anger, too. Jacob trembled.

"Jake." I wanted to calm him down. "It's fine. Don't be- It's fine."

"He put you in here in the first place!"

"Please?" Edward said it like there had been no interruption. And had there been? Was Jacob here, did it matter that he was here?

_Of course it does!_ Sternly, desperately. _He's your friend. Your very best friend._

_I don't love him._

_There's still time._

_It's not fair._

_Neither is _he_._

"I'll be right out, Jake."

Jacob's face darkened—not with a blush, but like I was watching an eclipse from up close. I could see the light snuff out. And I didn't want that, _You can't ruin the sun!_ so I reached out and touched his arm and that small contact lasted forever in _his_ eyes.

Jacob looked at me and nodded, and marched past Edward. Though Edward was tall, Jacob was much, much bigger. Jacob looked at Edward; Edward only glanced past his cheek at him. He waited until Jacob was outside to speak.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine."

Edward nodded. The line of his nose, the freckle in his neck.

"What do you want?"

Dark eyelashes, dark eyes.

"Well?"

"I wanted to see you. And I wanted to—to apologize..." A shudder went through him. His fingertips fluttered. "I'm sorry about Monday. Alice and I shouldn't—but there is something..."

His shoulders rose and fell as he took a breath. His lips paled a little.

"Something is happening that we don't understand. It involves you. Your future."

"I deduced as much." My voice was quiet enough that it was utterly neutral.

"Bella, if there is anything—Alice is concerned—there are no other known explanations for what sometimes-"

He lost his voice for a moment and shook his head to himself, like he was reprimanding the high emotion in eyes.

"Maybe you shouldn't look for my future."

Edward's eyes burned away at my face, reducing it to a blighted mess.

"It hasn't got anything to do with you or with Alice. You're not in my present, so why should my future concern you?"

Edward opened his mouth—I could see the glint of his white, sharp, even teeth.

"There's no need for this guilt, Edward." I was serene around the axe-wounds to my forehead, my neck, my throat, my heart, my stomach, my back, my legs. "You don't owe me anything. It's _my future_." I wanted to emphasize this before I succumbed. "It's not your problem."

"What?" His voice slapped across my face—it was furious, and I couldn't understand it—I'd just absolved him, he could drop it now without feeling bad—his white horse was of no use to anyone if it was unwanted.

"Guilt? Owe?"

"Don't you shout at her!" Jacob was suddenly at Edward's shoulder. Edward turned slowly, gracefully, his eyes flat.

I grabbed Jacob's arm—Edward reached out automatically, but I was already pulling Jacob from the room. "I want to go home," I said. My voice was pleading.

It seemed to release them from their respective furies, if only for a moment. Edward opened his mouth again, eyebrows pulled together; Jacob looked at me, lips pursed.

"Let's go," he said finally.

The silence lasted until we were almost at my house.

"Are you angry at me?"

Jacob didn't answer; his eyes just drifted across the road in front of him. I took it as a confirmation.

"Why?"

I'd wanted to say _I'm sorry_. I was. I was sorry that in that moment I'd chosen the clouds over the sunlight. Like in the old days, trapped perpetually in rain because of their skins and doing it because I loved them. But instead it came out _Why_.

"Why?" he repeated. He glanced at me, and his face was dark again. "I can't believe you talked to him!"

"It doesn't mean anything."

"Doesn't it?"

"Jacob-"

"He broke you."

"I-"

"And you still love him, don't you? I see it." His voice was gloomily victorious. "You love him and you let him break you over and over-"

"I'm trying Jacob. I'm doing the best-"

"Are you really?"

"Yes!" I shouted it because I had been trying _so hard_, it wasn't my fault it wasn't enough, I was giving it all I had!

He shook his head, smirking.

"I don't enjoy being like this." This came out through my teeth. "It's not as if I want this."

"You're still hoping he takes you back."

This was different: now it was _Jacob_ who had the gun against my head, it was _his_ dark eyes staring down the barrel, _his_ stony lips set in lines of anger and disgust.

Did I hope it? There was no hope. But did I _want_ it?

"It's over."

Jacob didn't answer. A few minutes later we were at my house. He let his car idle, waiting for me to collect myself sufficiently to get my things and get out.

"Aren't you coming in?"

"I should get home."

"Maybe tomorrow we-"

"I'm busy this weekend. Quil and Embry..."

The refusal sat there, in the air, choking away all feeling.

"Oh, okay. I guess I'll. See you around." My voice worked extra hard and it _did_ get all the words out. _There_ it seemed to say, pleased with itself. I_ still work_.

I took my bag and my flowers and Jacob shut the door from the inside, impatient to be gone, and then he reversed out and sped down the road and it was raining.

Of course it was raining.

* * *

**Disclaimer: The characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. Like yall didn't know that lol.**


	5. Chapter 5

5.

Perpetually unwanted.

It hadn't bothered me, before. In Phoenix it had been easy to forget that I had no friends or love interests—the spirit of the place had been a diversion and a companion. I'd been happy in school: unnoticed, one of many. It had suited me. I'd wanted nothing more than to be by myself. By myself I was happy. By myself, there was no hurt.

That weekend felt like a painful re-education of that fact. _This_—and the heartbreak rapped on the blackboard—_is what happens when you get close to people, Isabella. Are you paying attention? This is what it feels like. _

It hurt. It hurt so much.

Charlie came home earlier than usual that day, weary from another day spent searching—more reports of the giant bear, and another missing hiker. He stomped up to my room and beamed for a few seconds at having me home—the one person happy to see me—before his face fell when he really _looked_ at me.

"I thought Jake would be here," he said. His voice was suspicious and worried.

"Nah. He, uh. He had to go."

"But you're seeing him tomorrow, right?"

I shook my head.

"Sunday?" Charlie's voice, though, had lost its hope.

"He's spending time with his friends."

"You're his friend."

"That seems to be the problem."

Charlie digested this. "He wants...?"

"Yeah." My voice sounded sad even to me, and I was the one on the inside, the numb inside.

"Maybe he just needs-"

"He doesn't get the concept behind needing time." My voice was too faint to do the bitterness justice.

Charlie didn't know how to respond to that and I felt bad saying it: there was no need to weigh him down, too, he had enough to worry about. So I said, "I'll get started on dinner in a sec, I just need to finish this." I'd been sitting with _Pride and Prejudice_ open in my lap for hours.

"That's okay, I'll order pizza." Charlie put on a smile and I loved him endlessly for that.

"Okay."

The re-education continued for the rest of the drizzling weekend. I had tried a substitute—which was cruel and unfair and idiotic, no one deserved _that_, including me—and it had failed, as it should have. It wasn't right and it certainly wasn't healthy. All choice that remained, all option left for me was to quit it all, cold turkey.

It was hard, the sudden isolation _without_ its protective numb sheath. It was constant pins and needles varied with seizures of acute loneliness. My rational mind was determined that it should not be so difficult: I'd gotten along fine before, and that state could be found again, if only enough time would lapse. Waiting it out, then, was all that could be done, and I was impatient for this.

_Okay. Two days. Long time, right? I can do this. I can go back to being myself. _

My heart, however, disagreed. How, it asked, how could I ever fully recover from the attention that Edward had paid me? For a short while, me and my dull human existence had been the very center of his world. _His_ world! How did you go back to independent life after that?

It was vain and arrogant that I should feel so.

But what was more, and this was where the value lay: he was the only one I'd ever been completely in sync with. _Harmony_. At least, that was what it had felt like to me. I supposed it had been pretension on his part, like he'd pretended to be in love with me. To comfort me. He was a hero, a knight after all. It was his nature. He'd thought he could save me from myself, and he had—and then he'd gotten bored...

I couldn't blame him. Feeling my life from the inside out, I couldn't hold it against him. What interest was there to _him_ here, with me?

Two days. It was a long time, right?

Without him it was. Without Jacob and myself, it was.

* * *

I woke up early on Sunday morning—not by choice; a nightmare so lavish my throat hurt almost too much to speak. It had been the same as always, with a new, unique twist: I was in my house, in the kitchen. I'd followed what I thought was Edward there. But when I peered out the window it wasn't Edward I found, but a pair of yellow animal eyes alive with intelligence about me. Like they knew what I was about to do even before I did it.

They knew I would turn and run up the stairs; they knew I'd burst into Charlie's room, shrieking. There was a hideous scratch of nails on glass before me, and behind me, a lurking shadow—a vampire that wasn't Edward or a Cullen...

Charlie made no comment when he cranked my bedroom door open. He just looked concerned, which was almost worse.

He headed out early—they were still searching for the bear. I volunteered to help look. I thought hunting down a vicious bear, armed with a gun, would be a great diversion, but Charlie, though desperate for me to be happy, was not desperate enough to allow this.

"Have you ever handled a gun before?" He cocked an eyebrow.

I blushed. "No," I said, "but I can-"

"Bells. No."

I grumbled into my porridge.

"Can't believe the Chief of Police's daughter hasn't been taught how to handle a weapon," was just one of many accusations levelled against him, but he was firm. He chewed through his bacon with remarkably little indecision, and then bid me a good day.

"Stay out of the woods," he warned me, before shutting the front door.

I managed to preoccupy myself for about forty-five minutes in the kitchen, washing the dishes and disinfecting every surface. I wiped down the yellow-painted cabinets and swept the floor before rearranging the fridge and throwing out old food (Charlie had had to fend for himself for a few weeks recently, so there was plenty). That done, I worked my way into the small living room, busily dusting, rearranging the remote controls and straightening the picture frames on the walls.

That was when I saw it.

It had always been obvious to me that Charlie had never gotten over his failed marriage to Renee. He talked about her eccentricities like they were still sharing a house. I'd never felt it as acutely, though, than when I looked at the picture of us, when I was only a few months old: Charlie, handsome and grinning, Renee, beautiful and smiling, and me a squashy bundle in her arms.

My fingers touched the frame, that one snapshot of happiness before everything had gone to waste. Before the arguments started, before it culminated in my mother storming from the house, vowing never to return to this misery-drenched place.

Charlie and I were alike. What if we were too alike? What if this was it—_this_, for the next twenty years? I'd never thought about it quite like that. I'd considered it in the abstract (_it was Edward_). But to put it into perspective like that, into terms of time. _Twenty years_.

A cord wound around my throat, too tightly for me to do anything but snatch for breath. _No. No no no. Two days, twenty years. No no no._

My breathing was sobs and there were dark spots across my vision—the picture of my family winked away, and my back hurt and I was on the floor, I recognized the pattern on the bottom of the curtains and I could see dustbunnies in the corner.

_I can't do this for twenty years!_

_It'll hurt less eventually._

_How can you be so sure?_

Christopher had no answer, and neither did I.

I forced myself to get up, to stand. I could feel the sting of pain on my back, my elbow and my head, but this didn't matter. Inconsequential against twenty years. The walls of the small house crowded in around me, shunting me back and forth between themselves. I was out of the door before I could really think about it.

Panting, I turned automatically towards my truck—but I didn't have the keys, and there was no way I'd let the house have me, its prisoner for a lifetime. So I turned to the only other solution this small, pouring town had on offer: its woods, the maze of trees ancient enough to obliterate a concept as trifling as twenty years.

I ran. I fell, but I just kept on running, using my hands to scramble upright and claw myself into the forest like an animal. Soon green light was all I could see. It was everywhere, all sides, seeping through every particle, pushing back against every gasp, brushing its fingers against my skin.

I wandered for a long time.

My legs—trusty as ever—dutifully carried my non-responsive carriage around, like they were searching for something that would snap me from my stupor. They took me along paths, over fallen trees, through the berth of ferns, down slopes and back up. I was aware of them in a detached kind of way, like I was watching somebody else. This pale-faced creature with the dens of shadow under her eyes and the quivering lips and the still fingers couldn't be me. I felt sure of it.

_Impostor_.

I remembered the dream.

Edward beside me, my grandmother Marie before me. The smile we shared. The reaching out to touch. The realization.

Twenty years, thirty. Forty, fifty. Sixty if I were truly unlucky.

My feet had stopped. My breath was heavy in the still, pungent, green air. I was myself again, not watching from the outside. I felt the weariness in my legs and the pain in my lungs and the tears in my eyes. I felt the cold.

By the time I looked up, I thought I was dreaming again. I was convinced, for a moment, that the person so exactly mirroring my stance, must be _me_, but for the obvious: we looked nothing alike except for the roving eyes.

His lips peeled away in a slow, white-teethed smile, almost a leer.

"Bella?" Just a hint of a French accent.

"Laurent." My surprise knocked me back a step. I almost tripped over my own feet but miraculously they held me up.

"Hiking?" he asked.

He took a step forward, very deliberately. He had his hands clasped behind his back. His dark face, the dreadlocks, the pleasant smile and—out of joint, hadn't he been with the Denali's?-dark, red eyes. The colour was very subtle.

"What?"

"Have you been hiking?" He motioned at our surroundings, then at myself. I looked down at my arms. They were covered with scratches and bruising.

"Yes." But I had no voice left: he'd taken another step forward.

It all fell into place. The fear: _he's going to kill you_. The joy: _Bella...he's going to _kill_ you_.

No life, but no life sentence, either.

"Probably a bad idea, Bella," Laurent drawled. "There are all _kinds_ of monsters out here..."

He took another step forward, and then another—I missed the rest because he was suddenly right in front of me, smiling benevolently, reaching out-

_I am going to die_. I didn't waste time on regret (_I'm sorry dad, but I can't, not twenty years. I'm sorry mom, I wish I was more like you_): it was all joy, all pleasure. _I am going to die_. I wondered, in a vague way, where the Cullens were—wasn't this what Alice had seen? So if they were so eager to stop it, where _were_ they? But then I didn't really care, either. _I am going to die_. It was enough.

_Edward—I love you._

_Jacob—I love you._

It all burst from me, all these feelings I'd been repressing, all the sorrow and the fear and the anger and the regret and the love, but more than that, more than _any_ of that, the relief, the joy. I no longer had to suffer. I was free.

The air shifted.

_I am going to die._

* * *

I felt nothing.

Inside me—I was just a husk and there was nothing inside me. Before, I'd been aware that there was pain. Now there was no pain. There was nothing.

This happened:

Laurent was there. I felt his breath on my face and my lips, I saw his teeth, I knew that he was lunging. I was happy and I was relieved. _This is it. Finally, this is it._

But there were others. The Cullens, all around me. Jasper shoved Laurent back; Emmett caught his one arm, Carlisle the other. Alice danced in front of me, her eyes vacant and furious. Esme was next to her. Rosalie shadowed her mate. I moved my head to follow what was happening—for once it felt as though I could see _everything_: faces, details—but then the scene was gone, changed, different, and I was alone.

I was alone and Edward was all around me.

Every inch of his cold body felt like it was connected to mine—pressed into it, spread over it, forged to the particles of his existence. He held me so tightly it hurt. His smell obliterated every other scent and his voice every other sound and the sight of him, of his face an inch from mine and his lips mumbling into my chin and cheek was all there was.

"Bella. Bella. Bella." He repeated my name to himself.

Edward?

"Bella? Bella, it's alright. He's dead. Laurent is dead. He will never hurt you." His voice was ferocious.

He wasn't _going_ to hurt me, didn't Edward understand that? He was _saving_ me!

"Bella?" Concern replaced the anger.

I realized I should feel disgust, perhaps even shame. Here Edward was...out of guilt, again, _obligated _by his nature. Wrong and unnecessary—my ticket was up, it had been for weeks now, this was delaying the inevitable, hadn't he said so himself? So I knew what it was that I _should_ feel, but I felt nothing. Not even exhilaration that he held me, or that most taboo of all—desire, wanting his anxiety to be real, wanting it to be love. Nothing.

I probed this vast emptiness. Where did it begin? Where did it end?

"Bella?" He released me a little, holding me by the shoulders. "Bella, love? Are you-" His voice faltered and he looked beyond me, over my shoulder.

There was a pause, a rustle, and silence fell.

"How dare you touch her!" Jacob's voice boomed suddenly across me, crashing into me like a giant wave.

_Jacob?_

Edward readjusted me, tightening his grip, moving me so that I was behind him. It all happened quickly. One moment it was just him and I; the next, the Cullens were there, spread around us in a loose half-circle, and before us, a terrifying sight.

Wolves as big as horses. Jacob stood in front of them, wearing only a pair of faded, cut-off jeans. No shirt, no shoes. He towered. His hair was sheared off. His fists trembled. His dark eyes scored lines in the Cullens' protective stances.

No longer the sun, now a supernova.

"Jake?" The surprise of seeing him there, not only present but utterly _furious_, of him standing so confidently in front of the menacing monsters behind him—it yanked his name from me, like a tithe to the unlikelihood of the miracle.

"Let go of her!" His words trembled right along with his fists. The expression in his face was horrifying. Didn't he see, did none of them _see the wolves_? I tried to speak again, to shout, but the void had taken my voice, just as it had taken my emotions.

_Jacob! Watch out! Edward! The wolves! For God's sake-_

Edward's jaw locked; he spoke through his teeth. "Careful, dog. You're not in control of yourself."

"Stay out of my head!"

"Stay away from her." Edward's fury made Jacob pause in his steps.

I hung there between them, the sun and the moon, no, no, the sun and the rest of the universe, the rest of existence. None of this made sense. Laurent? That _had_ happened—I was sure of it. It had been so close. _Almost_...

"Jake!" My voice fought out against whatever dampened it. "The wolves-"

"Bella, are you okay?" Jacob took several strides towards me, and Edward's posture stiffened; it was echoed among the other Cullens. Behind Jacob, the wolves twitched, as though they were angry. One of them pawed the ground, digging its claws into the dirt.

"Don't worry about the wolves," Edward whispered in my hair, voice urgent, while Jacob hovered, glancing over his shoulder. "They won't harm you. They're Quiluetes. They're werewolves. Jacob-"

"I'll tell her myself!" Jacob's voice was a pulse of rage.

"Calm down!"

"Edward." Carlisle's voice was a mote of serenity, of rationality. "Jacob. Sam. Please."

Edward didn't look at his father, though his head inclined in his direction. Jacob glowered at the tall blond man, whose kind face was set in lines of worry. That expression rippled his own with insecurity, like a pebble tossed into a pool of water. Behind Jacob, the biggest of the wolves—its fur pitch black—seemed to relax on its haunches.

Everything swarmed into place, all the loose bits of information, even the dreams I'd been having, coming together and draining down a black hole. The light blinked.

Quileutes? Sam?

Sam _Uley_?

I remembered the tall Native American man with the mature eyes—remembered how there'd been nothing, just darkness, and then him, _Bella. Have you been hurt?_ among the trees and ferns and undergrowth. I remembered how his face had been shattered in pieces: his lips, the frown, the colour of his cheek in the darkness.

Carlisle spoke but I heard nothing. I stared at the black wolf. The wolf stared back.

_And so I find you again_ those mature eyes seemed to say. _Left for dead by another vampire. Will you never learn, Bella Swan?_

The light flickered and went out.

* * *

**Disclaimer: The characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. Except for Christopher. Bella's insanity is all I have. Lol.**


	6. Chapter 6

6.

I was twelve when I had my first crush.

It was a little thing, barely stronger than a butterfly's angsty wings. I spent an entire semester's worth of breaks watching him from a distance and lurking behind whatever there was to lurk behind—buildings, other people, my hair. He only looked back once, and then it was with scorn. One of his friends had made a remark. I could see the derision, the glee.

What had his name been?

I was sure I was laughing then. Only, there was nothing: nothing to laugh at, nothing to laugh with, nothing to laugh in. I had exploded and _everything_ was nothing.

Christopher. His name had been Christopher.

* * *

Worried voices buzzed like angry bees. They were trying to whisper but their pitch kept rising, as if unable to control itself. Jacob's tone especially couldn't dwell long in quietude, and then Edward's would snap out in response, as flat as Jacob's was heated.

"...a choice!" Jacob said, wounded and angry at the accusation Edward had levelled at him. "There was the injunction. I was already on my way back when it...happened." His teeth ground together, and another voice, almost as collected as Carlisle on his best day, issued forth.

"The injunction isn't personal. It's for everyone's safety." Sam Uley sounded utterly serene for a man who supposedly turned into a giant, black wolf.

Edward spoke, however, like there had been no interruption.

"You're guilty of everything you've accused me of." This sounded like a repetition. "And you know it," he added smugly.

"Bella?" Alice's voice was innocent, like she hadn't known I was awake until just that moment.

"Bella?" Edward said, speaking suddenly right next to me. Relief saturated his voice.

"Are you okay?" Jacob demanded, whose heat alerted me to his closeness even before his voice did. I felt the air shift as he leaned in, his hot breath tickling my right cheek; on my left, Edward's breath raised goosebumps.

Their faces were very near. Jacob's was as harsh as a desert sun, but vulnerable, like rain threatened its horizons. Edward's was the lull in a storming ocean. Beside them Carlisle's face hovered, propped in next to Alice: Carlisle, milk and honey and devotion; Alice, midnight and moonshine and mischief.

Strange that my eyes were open. I didn't remember opening them, and it felt rather foolish: there was no discernible difference between the blackness inside and the blackness outside. It was all just shades of the same void. I realized this now.

_(Only now I was six years older and the butterfly caused a whorl on the other side of the world. And all I could do was look at _him_ from a distance while my heart beat away the rest of my life sentence. I was going to die...why couldn't I just have died?)_

_(But dearest? You _have_ died.)_

"Bella?" Carlisle's voice was soft and mesmerizing. "It's Carlisle. You're safe. How do you feel? Do you remember what happened?"

My eyes were open, my eyes were closed. I couldn't tell which was which anymore. Something suggested this was important. _This is inside. That is outside. This is outside. That is inside_. The order also seemed significant, but I felt that it was lost, like fumbling with buttons with numb fingers. So I dropped it. It made no sense to keep trying.

"Bella?"

"I remember." The movie played in the back of my mind, a presentation: _this is what really happened_.

Remembering it now, though, it seemed different—clearer. Like I was seeing it for the first time and from another perspective. I noticed new little details: the necklace that swung forward as Rosalie hovered by Emmett, beautiful face contorted into beautiful rage: the full lips and wide eyes and haughty brow and ravine of blond hair. The way Jasper's face settled into complete apathy the more he focused. The whip of Alice's fringe, and the blank/conscious/blank/conscious loop on her face as she danced. Esme's blush and Carlisle's shoulders squaring. The anticipation in Emmett's face, the dimples at odd with his sheer bulk.

I saw, too, what happened with Laurent: how he was torn first in two, torso and pelvis, before Emmett grasped his head and Jasper his neck. My hair washed the picture out, there was a haze of jade, and then Edward and I were alone. Rosalie screeched a small way off, apparently in delight. Edward hesitated a single moment before he scooped me closer to himself.

I felt the slither of coldness through my clothes and his belt buckle grinding into my navel. His fingertips left icy marks on my back. His lips carved bruises onto the flesh of my face.

And Jacob. I heard them—there was a shimmer in the air and a set of footsteps changed from paws to feet. His voice reverberated with a new deepness. Thick muscle in his neck, the shadow of facial hair on his jaw. He was changed. Boy to man. Man to wolf. Wolf to boy. Boy to man...

"I remember everything." I understood now, too.

I was sitting upright. There was a tingle in my neck, a precipitation of feeling that slipped down my spine and was gone. I stared around me. The pale shades of the Cullen living room greeted me, the same as they had always been. The only jarring feature was the two Quileutes: Sam and Jacob, Sam standing farther off, removed from the outer trio that Rosalie, Jasper and Emmett formed.

My eyes took in the finer details, the perfect way the scatter cushions were aligned, the spotless appearance of the room, the fresh bouquet of flowers on the hearth, the clock near the mantle.

I slipped off the makeshift bed that had been set up, almost like an altar, and stepped away from the small side table filled with medical equipment and medicine. Three sets of hands reached out to steady me, but I needed none of them. Carlisle placed his instead on my forehead, briefly touching his cool skin to mine.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, though both Edward and Jacob spoke at the same time.

"Bella, I'm so-"

"I wanted to-"

"It's late," I said. It was past three. "I should get home."

There were a few beats of confused silence.

"Charlie isn't home yet," Alice chimed in the sudden stillness. Carlisle glanced at Edward, whose eyes were riveted on my face; Jacob was all satisfaction, and he made to move closer to me but I moved back a little. It was no more than a twitch, really—like magnets with opposite polarization, pushing against each other, like our previous bond had been reversed.

"I have to make dinner. And I have homework." These excuses sounded very firm, the way I said them.

"Bella." Edward's voice strained against the rationality he had set for it, failing to soothe. "You have just witnessed the death of a sentient creature, and your—friend," he hesitated around the word, "is-"

"I told you!" Jacob interrupted. "_I'll_ tell her!"

"I already know."

Their eyes stuck to my face.

"You're a wolf."

Jacob gaped, swallowed, steadied, nodded, and said, "That's why I haven't been around. I was on my way back to Forks Friday afternoon when..." His voice trailed off and he looked past Carlisle to Sam, whose arms were folded over his chest.

Edward's eyes flashed to Jacob's face for a moment as Jacob recalled the fight we'd had. His skin blanched and he turned back to me, a glint of desperation in his eyes.

"Bella," he began again. And now his voice was the one from _before_—when we'd been together. He could speak to me in a crowd and it ceased to exist...or no, it was like they'd _never been there in the first place_. The emphasis he put on my name, the cadence he wrapped around it, the way it spilled like silk from his mouth, silk and velvet and music...it was the most beautiful voice in the world. Memories whirled at me. Of touches and conversations...

All of them beautiful. All of them fake.

_He's still trying to save me_. There was nothing left to save.

"Alice?" I asked. I turned my face away. His eyes were burning me.

Alice's face was calculating: she looked me over before nodding. Of course, I didn't need to ask. "Sure, I'll take you back."

Jacob and Edward protested.

"I'll drive you," Edward volunteered, looking very much like he wanted to cry.

"We'll get you home," Jacob said, glancing at Sam, who nodded at him.

"You don't have a car," Edward told them coldly.

"I'll carry her." Jacob shrugged.

Edward's eyes flashed. "That's too dangerous, what if-"

"Then I'll carry her." Sam was serene. "I've done it before," he added.

The silence renewed. Edward opened his mouth to reply, but his lips merely hung open a moment, face torn between derision and pain. Jacob looked smug and crossed his arms again, his eyes dark. Carlisle and Esme both moved a few paces closer to Edward, Esme with her hands raised and Carlisle looking abruptly broken.

"Alice?" I repeated. My voice was breathless. Like it remembered what this void did not.

Alice surveyed me another moment, clearly surmising things I did not want her to know. A tremour ran deep through my body, convulsing my fingers into fists. I felt my nails bite into the skin of my palms.

"Come on, Bella." Alice held out her tiny porcelain arm to receive me.

"Carlisle," Edward's voice pled unashamedly of his father the minute Alice and I turned toward the kitchen. "You can't let her go. Something is wrong. This isn't—didn't you see the way-?"

"She's been through worse things than werewolves," Jacob spat. It sounded like he was shaking, or maybe that was just me.

Alice hurried me through the kitchen.

* * *

"Bells?" Charlie peeked into my room, frowning.

"Yeah?"

He stepped over the threshold, looking oddly suspicious—like he thought that this was a prank and was just waiting for the punchline to come storming at him like the animals they'd been chasing these past few weeks.

"You okay?"

My head tilted at him. "I'm fine. Why?"

"Dinner's done." The suspicion pooled around the words, searching for hidden meanings.

"Yes. Chicken pie. You like chicken pie, don't you?" I ascertained, though I knew very well that he did. I just didn't understand why he was acting this way.

"And everything is clean." My father's tone tapped against the projector. _Further evidence_.

"I cleaned a bit, yes."

There was a pause. Charlie frowned at me, chewing the inside of his lip. I readjusted the pen in my hand. That, apparently, was the straw that broke the camel's back.

"You're doing homework?" he demanded.

I frowned. I felt like my primitive computer, wheezing to access its data, fearful of not responding to a command in a timely fashion.

"Yes. English. I have an essay due..."

"But this morning-" Charlie didn't finish the sentence; he just shook his head. "Was—was-"

"I saw Jacob today," I said, finally catching on to what he needed. "In town. He was with some...friends."

Charlie waited. Now I was a printer, spewing out obligatory pages.

"He was sick but he's better now. Billy will be relieved..."

"Are you-?" Charlie didn't want to ask this: I knew it. But he had to know what he was dealing with. I understood as much because I was the same.

"He's getting more involved with tribe stuff. Jake I mean. Him and Sam and some others. It's a good thing," I said. "But I probably won't be seeing much of him. Quileuteness isn't something you can sign up for," I added, exaggerating my smile and the casual shrug that preceded it.

"That's crap!" Charlie said.

I frowned at him. "Preserving one's cultural heritage-"

"I know, Bella." Charlie sounded grudging. "I just meant—how busy can it keep you?"

"It's just the excuse, Dad." The sad acceptance in my voice now was not feigned. "It would have ended sooner or later. I was just stringing him along. It's better that it ended now. Like this. We can still be friends, in a way I guess..."

I gave Charlie a small smile and turned back to my books, hitching the page I was working on back into position. "Call me when you want to eat."

Charlie paused, then said, "Now, I guess..."

His stomach grumbled as he said it. I smiled and dropped my pen. "Did you see the dessert in the fridge?"

* * *

**A/N: The last few chapters were a bit short, sorry. Chapter 7 is a turning into a real whopper, though, so look out for that :) Here's a little preview...**

"Bella?" Musical—velvet darkness—his touch was the night.

"Edward?"

**Thank you for the reviews and sorry that this took so long. Please review :)**

**Disclaimer: The characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. **


	7. Chapter 7

7.

_Edward leaned against a tree and stared at me, his expression unreadable._

_"Okay, let's talk," I said. It sounded braver than it felt. _

_He took a deep breath._

_"Bella, it's over."_

_I took a deep breath, too. I'd been waiting for this—waiting for the charade to stop. Still, it came as a surprise to me. This was so sudden. _

_"Why now? Another year-"_

_"No." His refusal was as hard and as cold as his eyes._

_Staring at his face, it suddenly made sense. I'd misunderstood. _

_"When you say it's over..." My voice was far away; even as I spoke it washed in and out of my ears in a bubbling gush. "You mean..."_

_"_We're_ over."_

_Not the pretence—going to high school, being human, trying to be normal. But us. Him and me. _

_"Why?" The word was small and frightened. It trembled beneath the dripping leaves. I couldn't stop the shivering. It came from some deep place I had no control over. _

_Edward took another deep breath, dropping his gaze to the forest floor. When he finally looked up, only his lips moved—the rest of his body was ice. His eyes were impenetrable._

_"I'm tired of pretending Bella. I'm not human." _

_And he didn't look it. He looked more like an angel than ever before; like Lucifer vowing his revenge against the dawn. Nothing could ever be simultaneously so beautiful and so devastating. My heart murmured its fear and my lips pled with my lungs to give them breath but they wouldn't listen. My next words were a whisper._

_"Edward. Please. Don't. You're my everything." My insides bled around this confession. Surely he must have known it—guessed it, at the very least—but never before had I said it like that. Never before had I admitted how inconsequential I was without him. How little of me there was left, how little belonged to my self. _

_But it was too late. Even though tears shattered my sight I could see that: see it in the shift of his jaw and the clench of his fingers. It was too late. He'd already decided._

_"I'm nothing of yours, Bella." _

_Hard and unrepentant. His topaz eyes did not flinch._

_"That changes things." Inaudible, but he seemed to understand._

_"We'll leave you alone." His voice was smoother now, all promises and victory. "You won't have to speak with us ever again. It will be as if it never happened. Do you understand, Bella?"_

_Words were lost to the abyss that was quickly opening beneath my feet, so I just nodded._

_"Goodbye, Bella." He leaned forward and kissed my forehead, so lightly that it was more of a fantasy than an actual touch. His scent swirled in my head and dulled the ache in my eyes—his snowy skin scattered with droplets of water...everything stopped for one second, and then he released me._

_I grasped for him but my hands were too slow._

_"Edward, wait!"_

_But he was already gone._

* * *

"Bella?" Musical—velvet darkness—his touch was the night.

"Edward?"

There was no struggle to consciousness. I felt alert and awake though I knew, or assumed, that I had been asleep—only it had been a different sleep: black and deep and vast. Sitting up in my bed, struggling against snowy hands that gave way when they realized my insistence, my back sizzled pleasantly. I felt more rested than I had in weeks. Months, even.

My eyes took a moment to adjust to the darkness. When I could distinguish more than shapes, I wasn't surprised to see Edward prised on the edge of my bed. Half his face was hidden in shadow. The half I could see was all stark contrasts: pure white skin and pitch black eyes, the straight line of his nose and the sculpted curve of his lips, his bronze hair and dark eyelashes.

"I'm sorry that I woke you."

His voice was laden with remorse.

"What are you doing here?" My voice was soft; it came out at the practised pitch I'd learned on the endless nights Edward had spent in my room, when Charlie was still awake or downstairs. It was strange, I thought—that my heart had forgotten so much, but that my body still remembered.

Edward swallowed and his eyes shifted to his hands.

"I shouldn't have. I promised...that you wouldn't have to—I haven't forgotten—and yet," and here his voice turned accusing and his hands balled into fists, "I've already broken that promise, too. We know now, though. It was the wolves. Jacob." Venom pooled around the name.

"I don't understand."

Edward lifted his eyes to me.

"There were times when Alice couldn't see you." Even in the darkness the panic around his eyes was obvious. It guarded his voice and made it pitch in unusual places. "We didn't understand. That was why we—she," his lips twisted in disgust, "because why else would your future disappear? If not for..."

"Suicide."

He made an involuntary sound in the back of his throat and suddenly he was right before me, only inches away from me. His hands almost touched mine, where they lay on the coverlet, but he recovered himself and placed them on his thighs, casting his face away again.

"Yes. I didn't know—couldn't know—what you were thinking. Jasper volunteered to...feel. But I—not that I don't trust him... I just couldn't allow him to. Selfishness!" He laughed softly but there was no humour in the sound. "Not when _I_ couldn't feel what...know what you were thinking... My pride." A wry smile filled with darkness. He shook his head and his eyes were hollow shadows.

"But it was Jacob." My mind had made the connection now. Boy to man, man to wolf, and somewhere in that cycle Jacob was lost to Alice's visions. Jacob with the ever-bright skin.

"Yes. Alice can't see the wolves. It's making things quite difficult with-" He broke off suddenly and his eyes checked mine. I didn't know what he saw but he looked satisfied.

There was a long silence. Edward seemed determined that I should be the one to break it.

"You didn't answer my question."

"Which one was that?" Edward frowned. He looked confused. I'd never seen him so lost to himself before. It was oddly...captivating. He was always so in control. With his emotions, his desires. To see him succumb triggered something in me—deep in my core. I wanted to hold him. I wanted to break him. I wanted to make him mine in a way he had never allowed...

But these feelings drained away as I spoke.

"Why are you here?"

Because nothing had changed. Nothing was different. He had left. Jacob had gone. And me...I was back. I felt so vital. So certain that everything would be okay. Confident. A little reckless, even. The longer I was awake, the more clearly I could feel that shift away from _their Bella_ to _me_.

It felt good.

"I..." He hesitated, now staring at me, searching my face for something again. I wondered what it was. Weakness? That was likely. But I couldn't detect any weakness on my face, not mental, emotional, or physical.

"Yes?" I prompted, when he lapsed into a furrowed silence. Like he didn't understand.

"I wanted to apologize. Bella-"

"I've already told you." I was patient. "There's nothing to apologize _for_."

"Yes. You told me." His voice was suddenly bitter and angry. His eyes flashed, the dead pits seething. "At the hospital, before you left with that..."

He shook his head, once, twice. He paused for a long moment. Then his hands were on mine. Gentle and cold, but firm. He wasn't letting go.

"Edward..." I hadn't said his name in so long, and now it was to stop him. I could see him mustering his stallion. Saving me again. And I didn't want that—I didn't want any of it.

"You don't owe-" I began, but he cut across me.

"Not that again. Bella. I'm not doing this because—I'm not here because I _owe_-" But words kept failing him. Instead he crushed my hands to his chest, almost rocking over them, like he was praying.

"I'm here because I want to be here. Bella, please. Believe me. _This_—these past few weeks...I'm so sorry. For everything. I just wanted—and perhaps if I was stronger—but I couldn't _not_ see you. Bella."

He had our hands at his face now. He brushed the back of my hand along his cheek, pausing to press his lips to the pulse that beat steadily at my wrist. He repeated, "Bella," again, like it was a talisman against what he was feeling, like it would protect him, give him coherence and reason.

I could feel his pain where our skins touched, so I tried again—tried one last time—to absolve him. I would have to be cruel. I couldn't leave any room for doubt. Otherwise, he'd never go—he'd never be free.

"Edward." I savoured the way his name tasted in my mouth. So long I had fought against it—against saying it, against hearing it, against its very existence. It echoed in my soul, it felt like—it reached very deep. But this was the last time his name would mean anything to me.

"It's over." My voice was soft but firm. Patient, but cool. I worked at it, angling it this way and that—the weeks of depression had made me a trained professional. "You and me. We're over. We're done. I understand now. I don't blame you. You're not...you're so much more than-"

The resolve slipped and his name pounced on my lips like salvation. "Edward."

"Bella?" His eyes refused to leave mine. His voice broke.

"I'm sorry, too. For everything. I never meant to hurt you. I should have been stronger. But I'm there now. I'm better. Things are better. I understand why you had to—why we..." My voice wasn't ready with all the answers yet, so I took a deep breath. A few words would have to be enough. It was all I could afford.

"We weren't meant to be together. I see that now."

He was a statue of shock and devastation. My heart missed a beat just looking at him. He looked so fragile. Gingerly I withdrew my hands from his lips. His fingers froze on mine for a second before he let me go—let my skin slip away from his.

The breath hitched in his throat like he wanted to say something. I couldn't help it—the last time, I promised myself, like I had with his name. I pushed myself closer to him and put my arms around him in an awkward half-embrace. I pressed my cheek to his and breathed in the summer honey lilac of him.

He didn't hesitate—he reached up and held me to him. He was jerking with tearless sobs. Tears spilled over my eyes and collected on his skin like dew.

"I loved you," I said.

* * *

It was hard to believe, a few hours later—a few hours after _that_—that it was Monday morning, and that I had to go to school. It was almost as mundane as the ever-present, ever drizzling rain. When I'd been with Edward, the contrast had felt ludicrous, unreal. _Edward Cullen_, his kisses and his adoration, versus _Bella Swan_ and _the Forks High School_.

But now it matched—now it made sense. I _was_ just a normal girl. Or not even that—this was added wryly, and I wondered whether it was Christopher resurfacing—but my mind was silent and calm, devoid of unnatural voices or intruding fantasies about paranormal beings.

_It's just me in here. _

"You're up early." Charlie's voice preceded him into the kitchen. When he came in, he was pulling on his jacket. He looked a little crumpled around the edges, a little careworn.

"What's wrong?" I asked. My voice accosted him by the yellow cupboards, where he was reaching for a mug.

"What do you mean?" There was definite evasion in his eyes.

I took the mug from him and poured him coffee, giving him time to settle at the table. I sat down opposite him and waited.

"Thanks, Bells," he said, and took a sip.

"Why do you look so tired? Didn't you sleep?"

"Why all the questions?" he countered. He was amused now. It crawled from behind the reluctance slowly, crinkling his eyes.

"You look sick." I narrowed my eyes at him. "Maybe you should take the day off. You were out the whole weekend looking for that bear-"

"Bella, relax. I'm fine. I just had some trouble sleeping."

The area around my mouth went numb, like it had been stung by bees. Several things clicked into place simultaneously. I stared.

"I was worried..." Charlie took another sip of his coffee, and decided to make eye contact, where he'd been eyeing his old furniture like he'd never seen it before. "I thought you'd be upset. About Jake."

I ran my lips over each other to get some blood in them. "Oh. No. Jake...it's better this way. He, uh. We wanted different things."

Charlie was frowning before I'd even finished the sentence, the good humour replaced with an expression I recognised as "fatherly duty".

"I'm sure he'd rather be friends than-"

"No, Dad. It's unfair." I got up and opened the fridge. I wasn't really hungry but I wasn't in the mood to have a facedown with Charlie's stubborn, either.

"I can talk to Billy about it." I recognised the jut to Charlie's jaw because I'd inherited it.

"Dad. No."

There was a pause. A guilty pause. I shut the fridge and turned on Charlie.

"Dad?"

Charlie made a show of nonchalance, readjusting his mug on the table and twitching the toes of his boots.

Exasperation and panic flooded me because Charlie was about as good a liar as I was.

"Charlie, what did you _do_?" I demanded, standing behind my chair and testing the strength of my knuckles on its backrest.

"Well, now," Charlie said, a blush spreading from the points of his moustache. "I didn't do anything, okay? Billy called me."

"So you already spoke." This was a huff of annoyance.

"Yeah." Charlie toyed with his mug again, but his shoulders had relaxed. If anyone was the fall guy for this one, it was Billy, and what was I going to do about that? The man was in a wheelchair.

"Billy is worried about Jake. When Jake came home yesterday, he was very depressed. And didn't you say you saw him in town? Bells," and now Charlie had his detective face on, "did something happen? With you and Jake."

Now I was the one taking serious evasive action. I leaned against the counter and folded my working arm over my chest, desperately trying to work out how much to say without lying or squirming, or possibly both.

"Not really," I said. "Nothing new, anyway. Jake and I...we just...it came to that point where we both-"

"Bella." Charlie eyed me knowingly.

"I think Jake might regret the whole...tribe thing." I sighed and fiddled with the toaster's plug. "But it's not fair to him. I want him to be happy, and _I_ can't give him that."

Charlie drained his coffee before replying. "Sounds to me like you're doing a lot of his reasoning for him," he noted. He was obviously trying to play it cool, perhaps thinking that it would entice me into agreeing. "How does Jake actually feel about this?"

I was annoyed at Charlie for taking Jacob's side without any hesitation. Whose father was he, anyway? "He's the one who—who—_drove off_!" I muttered, stalking the irritation. "He's the one who made the decision that I was too much of a lost cause."

Charlie shrugged. "Give him a break. He's a sixteen-"

"Exactly!"

"-year old boy," Charlie finished, rather gravely. He got up, stretched, and headed for the peg his holstered gun hung from. "Boys," Charlie mused, uncharacteristically wise for so early in the morning, "are kinda stupid."

"And wolfmen?" But I said this under my breath, so Charlie didn't hear.

"I'll see you tonight," Charlie said, heading for the door.

"Wait!" My eyes darted around the kitchen automatically, willing my school bag to appear of its own accord. "You have to drop me off." My arm sat in its sling, taunting me with its immobility.

Charlie watched me search around the staircase for the bag, finally fishing it out from beneath my coat, which I'd slung over a banister rather than hang up the day before.

"Well..." he said. He already had his keys in his hand and the door open. To no one's surprise, it was raining outside. Buckets. Which was why I didn't immediately notice the red Volkswagen that stood parked across the street, the driver of whom was heading for our house.

"Dad!"

"He offered." Charlie shrugged, unrepentant. I didn't doubt for a second that he and Billy had masterminded the entire thing.

"But—it's-" I struggled ineffectually for words.

"Have a good day at school," Charlie said, chipper, and swaggered outside. "Morning, Jake!" he called. A tall dark shape loomed from the rain, like a distorted nuclear mushroom: Jacob was holding a black umbrella, of which one spoke stuck out.

"Hey, Charlie." Jake sounded almost as happy as my father, and his tall legs carried him over the threshold a few seconds later. He ducked his head and folded up the rickety umbrella before he faced me.

"Hey, Bells," he said, and grinned.

I waited until Charlie had reversed out before I replied. The pause was long and awkward.

"What are you doing here, Jacob?"

He had an answer ready. "Picking you up for school. Bum arm," he clarified, pointing at my sling and almost bouncing on his heels.

"Did Charlie and Billy bully you into this?"

Jacob looked surprised; this clearly wasn't a question he'd been prepped for. "No," he said, frowning. His deep set eyes were confused. "Charlie asked me this morning when, uh, when my dad called..."

His voice trailed away guiltily as my frown increased.

"What?" he asked finally, wary and self-conscious.

"Why did you agree? You should just have said no. I can't believe Charlie asked. I wished he hadn't," I seethed, angry now, and embarrassed. Did Charlie think I was that weak? Did Jacob? And Billy? Was everyone so convinced that I was permanently on the point of collapse that they made decisions like this, taking it for granted that I wouldn't be able to for myself?

And to guilt Jacob into it. Jacob who was disgusted with me, and now I knew why—now I understood the depth of it, and the reasons behind the animosity. How foolish I must have looked to him, bleeding for a vampire who no longer wanted me—who'd realized, after months of mediocrity, that the occasional thrill wasn't worth the monotony that interspersed it.

Jacob's face flinched at my words but he bore it away before I could inspect it too carefully. "Why do you say that, Bella?"

I stared at Jacob for a few seconds, trying to work out what wasn't being said. "You don't want to be friends with me." I said this slowly. It hurt to recall that particular conversation, but I flagged it down and continued, "Last Friday, when-"

Jacob's face cleared—he understood what I was getting at. "Oh, that. I—well I wanted to say sorry yesterday but _he_ kept interrupting..." He shuddered and puffed out a breath, and suddenly he was all clumsy big hands and clumsy big feet. He worked his fingers around the umbrella nervously.

"I wanted to say sorry. For Friday. I didn't mean anything I said, Bella. Really. I was just..." But what he was, he had no words for. "And then I couldn't come back." He spoke more quickly, trying to get the words out before I could make him stop. "I tried to, but Sam put us under this injunction. Sam's the alpha, so when he orders us to do something, we can't just ignore it. But now that you know," Jacob concluded, and there was savage glee in his face, "well there's nothing Sam can do about _that._" Jacob gloated.

"The alpha?" I asked, despite myself.

"The leader of the pack," Jacob hurried to explain. "He was the first wolf. It was hard for him," Jacob added defensively. He was probably trying to make up for Sam's behaviour to me, at the Cullen's, and by extension his own. "He didn't know what was happening, he was all alone."

He put his eyes down and shifted his weight, looking for a change of topic on the rug.

"Is it hard for you?"

There was just the sound of the rain for a moment. It was really coming down now. Torrents ran down the street, a couple of inches up Jacob's Rabbit's wheels.

"It's okay. It's..." But he shrugged.

"It bothers you, doesn't it." My voice was very flat in my throat, after the realization I'd had at the breakfast table. "It has to. You're not a bad person, Jake. I know that."

Jacob looked at me, his eyes indecipherable. When he spoke, he sounded angry and offended.

"What has that got to do with anything?"

I was nonplussed. I didn't understand why he was glaring. "The—well, the killing!"

"Oh." Heavy sarcasm made his voice nasal. Jacob abandoned pawing the umbrella, his shoulders rigid. "I suppose that _would_ bother you." He said this stiffly, the anger and vengeance fading into cold neutrality that made his face almost unrecognisable. "But you know, Bella, they're not good guys, okay? They're bad. They're-"

"Not good guys?" I repeated. "Not good guys? That's Charlie you're talking about, Jacob! How can you—how do you- Ugh!"

Jacob's face slackened before he hitched back his frown. "I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

"They're just trying to protect Forks and the hikers from you and the—_the pack!_" I swiped at the angry tears toiling from my eyes, retreating farther into the house, wanting to get away from him and his self-righteousness. "And _they're_ the bad guys?"

"Bella, wait." Jacob's tone was urgent behind me. I'd gotten up four steps before his hand folded around my arm, burning hot against my cool skin. He twisted me around; I still only reached his chest.

"Let go of me!" It was more of a sob and less of a demand, which was probably why he ignored it.

"You don't understand!" Jacob's breath was warm in my face, woodsy and comforting. "You got it wrong. We don't kill people. We haven't been killing hikers. We only hunt one thing. Don't you remember the story, Bella?"

He gazed at me with something more than mere inquiry—it was almost _need_.

"The one I told you, before things got so screwed up," he clarified, when I didn't respond. "On the beach that day at La Push. About the cold ones."

His fist tightened at the last part and I yanked at my arm, but he only breathed in through his nose and loosened his grip—he didn't let go...in fact, he grew almost imperceptibly closer. Though the door was still open and an icy breeze rustled my discarded jacket, I no longer felt cold.

"Do you remember?" he prompted, when I was silent, processing his presence.

And I did remember, now that I had the context. The day on the beach, my idiotic flirting. And looking into Jacob's face now, I wondered how much damage _that_ had done. How selfish I was, how selfish I had always been with him. Time and time again I'd used him, used his tenacious but unrequited fascination for my own purposes...

_(Werewolves have enemies?  
Only one.)_

Jacob waited for me. I worked my scrambled thoughts into a seamless, coherent sentence. "Werewolves only have one enemy. The cold ones."

Jacob nodded. In his enthusiasm, he had wrapped his other hand around my free elbow, just above the sling, and he was holding me tightly only a spectre of inches away from him, the umbrella poking at my arm.

"We're protectors, Bella. We don't harm people. We only harm vampires."

I was pretty sure that my face was vacant, but Jacob seemed to understand.

"Except for the Cullens." He admitted this bitterly. "The treaty, remember. Because they don't harm humans. But really," and his eyebrows started travelling up his forehead, "this is their fault. If it wasn't for them, that redhead would never have come here in the first place. I know," he said quickly, when my face turned stony, "they can't help that the one with the dreads and that other vampire thought you were some kind of sport, but then if-"

"Victoria?" My voice was just a whisper but it halted his speech as if I'd shouted it at him. "Victoria is still around?"

I remembered her—of course. The frenzied eyes and frenzied hair, both a vivid shade of red. The thirst and the superiority, the gloat, the certainty, the malice... Fear dropped my stomach. My throat squirmed for air.

Jacob didn't respond. He'd twisted around to look over his shoulder. Following his gaze, I realized why he had stopped talking. It wasn't for my benefit.

Edward and Jacob were vastly different in stature. Edward was tall and lithe, with smooth, subtle muscles working under his rock hard skin. He had a way of carrying himself that was as gentle as a storm on the horizon—all potential threat and confident destruction. Jacob was aggressive in his bulk. Though his muscles weren't nearly as glaring as Emmett's or Sam's, they were wiry and taut, and his carriage was monstrous—sheering to well over six feet of trembling fists and murder in his dark, deep set eyes.

But there was no doubt in my mind as to which one of them was more terrifying in that moment.

Edward stood at the bottom of the stairs, completely motionless. Behind him was Alice. Her face was relatively more animated—she was frowning heavily.

"I asked you." Edward's voice was black. "_We_ asked you. We agreed that Bella didn't need to worry about this."

"How long have you been here?" Jacob spat in response, but he had none of the over-confident swagger that he'd had the previous day. He'd caught onto the look in Edward's eyes. It was pure, lucid hatred.

"You didn't hear us outside?" Alice asked, her tone light and slightly mocking.

"Why were you outside?" I demanded of the space between Edward and Alice's bodies. I couldn't look at _him_ because I'd promised that I wouldn't—letting him go meant I had to pretend that he didn't exist, because for all intents and purposes he _didn't_—he was an hallucination and for a few months, I'd been a part of it—but it was over now. I couldn't look at Alice because I knew she that she knew what I'd said, and that she probably judged me for it. She had bought into the fantasy almost as much as I had.

"Because I couldn't see you," Alice said simply.

Jacob dropped my arms and took a step down the staircase. The friction between him and Edward was palpable, yet neither moved or readjusted their position.

"That's not Bella's problem!" he sneered. "She's safe with me."

"A new werewolf?" Edward said this slowly, every word precise and every word heaped with scorn and bristling with fury. "Hardly."

"As opposed to?" Jacob taunted, smiling humourlessly. "A vampire? A blood-sucking, filthy, reeking-"

"Jake, please," I said, breathless with anxiety. If they fought—over _this_—if one of them got hurt, or _killed_...I shuddered and took a step down, wondering if I would have enough time to put myself between them.

Jacob fell silent and continued to glare at Edward for a few more seconds before he turned back to me.

"C'mon," he said, holding out a hand. "We've got to get to school. You're going to be late."

Edward's voice was poison and honey all at once. "You're too upset to drive...Jacob. If you truly care about Bella," and his tone made it clear that he didn't believe this for a second, "you'll agree that her getting in a car with you now is foolish."

Jacob scoffed and tried to grab my hand again, but I folded it against my chest.

"No," I said.

Jacob's surprise instantly turned to resentment. I could see it ticking away behind the glossy sheen that was all he had left of his long hair.

"I'll walk," I said. "Since you're going to argue about it."

"Bella," Edward said, using a soft, melodious, reasonable voice that was not unlike Carlisle's hypnotic attempts to keep me in hospital, at the receiving end of a needle. "You're hurt, and it's raining. We'll drive you to school. You don't even have to speak to us—me," Edward revised, when Alice scowled at him. "This is for your own-"

It dawned on me, then, what I'd thought about before but had hoped wasn't true.

They _did_ think I was weak. Incapable. Desperate, helpless.

All of them. Even Jacob.

My stomach lurched in disgust.

"I said," I repeated, "no."

"Let's go, Bella," Jacob said, grabbing my free hand before I could put it out of range of his long arms.

"No!" I yanked my hand free in the same instant that Edward got his hand on Jacob's arm. The contrast between their skin tones was vivid—dessert sand red, snowy porcelain white.

I lunged forward, toppling onto Jacob. In an instant, Jacob was against the wall and I was at the door, Edward's back sheltering me, Alice with a pre-emptive arm wrapped around my waist.

And Jacob was shaking. It ripped through him in convulsions. His fists were tight, the veins on them standing out languidly. There was the beginning of a shimmer in the air...

But he stopped it. The moment stretched and stretched, and he grew still again. Finally he opened his eyes and unclenched his fists, snorting with exertion. The umbrella fell from his right hand, sticking out at odd angles.

"Jake? Are you alright? Alice," I added sharply, when she tightened her arm in response to my movement.

She and Edward exchanged a look, before she nodded to herself and stepped back, crossing her tiny arms and looking wary.

Jacob shook his head once, twice, before he responded, and then it was with certainty. "I'm fine." His voice was brusque; suddenly, he was all business. The cold neutrality was back in place. "If you want me to drive you, Bella, let's go."

But behind Sam's face, I could see that it hurt him, hurt him deeply—me, siding with the vampires, siding with the boy who didn't love me and the girl who had never been certain about my future. That should have been a sign, I realized—the epiphany had probably been there for a while, but I only understood it then, strung, as I was, between them—between all that I had wanted and all I could never have.

I took a deep breath, so when I stepped clear of Alice and moved to the middle of the tiny room, my movements were decisive.

When I looked up, Alice was frowning, and Edward glared.

"Jacob wouldn't hurt me." I said this purely for clarification, because Edward looked like he wanted to argue the point some more. "But that doesn't change anything. I'm sorry," I told Jacob. I meant it, too, but for so much more than just that moment. His face was unreadable.

"Where are you going, Bella?" Alice asked, much too exasperated. She held her arms oddly, as if she had changed her mind mid-movement.

"School." I had to smile at that. School, after a face-off between two supernatural creatures. "Please close the door when you leave."

With a last apologetic look at no one in particular, I slung my jacket over my shoulders and hitched my school bag over my free arm and set off. The short distance between our porch and the road felt like forever, but I continued walking, ignoring the cars parked across my home and the eyes burning holes in my back.

When I reached the corner, it felt like a great weight had shifted; like the pattering rain had washed it away, not in one clear go, but steadily, as it drummed on the homes around me.

* * *

**A/N: It took forever, I know :-( What did you think of the AU break-up scene? **

**Disclaimer: The characters belong to Stephenie Meyer...except for Christopher. He's mine, all mine! Muhahahahaha!**


	8. Chapter 8

8.

Victoria.

It didn't really surprise me. There was no deep sense of disturbance at the news that she was after me. In my gut I had always known. There was a reason she and James had been together, been in love. They were two of a kind. In a way, James' death was just another twist in their remorseless game. It was fuel on an already unquenchable fire.

I remembered her very clearly, though I had only seen her once. Her face was bleached on the inside of my skull. Residue of the terror I had felt, facing her and her coven and knowing what they wanted: him, he. Edward. At the time I had thought it was dreadfully, horribly ironic that exactly the kind of situation Edward feared the most, was wrought upon us so soon, but I had new insights now.

It wasn't just exactly the situation Edward had feared, realized. It was mine, too. A situation wherein I, too weak, too human, too slow and too stupid to defend myself—could cost him his very existence. And I almost had. And I was doing it again.

Even though everything had changed, _nothing_ had changed, in one way: Edward would continue to defend me. Even though everything had been a lie—every caress, every kiss, every whisper—Edward would not stop until he had stopped her. Ripples of pain creased the surface of my calm, but I breathed in the clammy air and turned my face to the sky. It wasn't surrender, though. It was resolution.

I wasn't going to cost Edward anything more. I wasn't going to hold him back. Victoria was what had led him to my room. It wasn't love, or regret. When Victoria was no longer a threat—when he no longer had to worry about me—then he'd be free.

Razor-sharp wire wrapped around my heart, because after he had gone, when it was just me and my dried tears in my bed, the residue of his scent strong in my nostrils—for one fleeting moment, just the touch of a breeze, I had hoped.

_Maybe. _

_Maybe he does still love me, in a way. Not as much as I love him, of course, but..._

_Maybe._

I'd always known it was guilt that had brought him back, but I understood more fully now. He was anxious about Victoria. It was in his nature to want to be with me, stay with me, make sure that I was safe and protected. Nothing more. No maybes.

The edges of my injuries crackled. How many times my heart had died inside. It fluttered now, in my chest, and I found myself standing still beside the road. The road flowed around a corner, its greyish surface dancing with droplets of rain.

I wasn't heading for school, but then my feet had already known that.

Everything felt immaculately silent. It was almost rubbery, like I could grasp it, moving just beyond my skin. For one long, clear moment, I felt untouchable—like I was suspended in invincibility, and then I knew what had to be done without really thinking about it. It was more of a feeling. Deep and sure.

I had to let it go. All of it, all of them. And to do that—to really do that—there was only one way.

_O happy dagger, this is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die._

_

* * *

_

**A/N: I know, it's a speck. Or a stub. It just wanted to be by itself. In thi****s chapter's case, one-word reviews are perfectly acceptable :-)**

**Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephenie Meyer. The last line is a Shakespeare quote. **


	9. Chapter 9

9.

Execution.

The plan was there. All that remained was its execution.

It had to be perfect. I couldn't afford any mistakes. Mistakes could cost lives—other people's lives. Mine was irrelevant now. That was the point.

I knew all this, deep inside, but still I had to bluff and dwell in uncertainty.

Uncertainty was the one place Alice's visions could not go. There, and La Push.

And really, that was all I needed. That, a bit of time, and some luck.

* * *

I didn't go to school, and I knew I wasn't alone.

They were discreet about it, whoever they were—Edward, Alice and Jacob, I guessed—but I could feel their presence as though they had their faces pressed up to the blank windows of the homes I passed. This didn't make a dent of difference, though. I kept walking, and a few minutes later I had reached the outskirts of town.

I kept going.

La Push was fifteen miles away, maybe sixteen. I edged away from the road, keeping to the very fringes of the thick trees, weaving in and out of them. My cast itched and my bag dug into my shoulder. I could feel the numbness burning at the tips of my fingers and my toes. It was very, very cold, and very quiet.

The rain had almost completely stopped. I could hear each breath in my lungs before it made it to my lips. An infinitesimal space of time that felt suddenly poignant. This was it, then. Approaching one slow, clumsy footstep at a time. Beating away, slightly faster than usual—vibrating in my chest... It, death, the end.

_Very dramatic, Bella. _

_Christopher?_

_I'm here, baby. With you to the end._

The panic clotting my throat melted away, and my heart rate steadied out.

_Thank you._

_No problem._ Christopher was sober. _It's almost over. _

_Yes_. There was no point in denying it. _Almost_.

I thought about Charlie and Renee. I thought about my bedroom. I thought about Phoenix. I thought about school—Angela, Ben. Mike, Jessica. Eric, Tyler. Even Lauren. How foolish our little feud looked now.

And I thought about _them_. Edward, Alice, the Cullens. My family and never my family. And the Blacks. In some ways Jacob and Billy were more family than the Cullens ever were to me: we had had a history and once, however fleetingly, the real possibility of a future. I deeply regretted that I could not be for Jacob what he had wanted so desperately. In another world without vampires, we would have been soulmates. I saw that now. Our skins fit together like pieces of a puzzle...natural, unhurried, harmonious.

But hearts did not listen to what they were told, and there was no use pretending that Edward did not exist. He did and even if he were gone and even if _I_ were gone—_when I'm gone_, I corrected internally—still there would be no choice and no doubt. I loved _him_, with everything I had. I loved him and it hurt. It ached and gouged and killed me, but I loved him. I couldn't help it and I didn't want to. I loved him.

_You could have him_. Christopher suggested this quietly, almost slyly.

_Only as long as I was in danger_. I knew where this trail of thought led because I'd been down it before; and had denied it.

_You could put yourself in danger._

This idea flared brightly and hopefully but bitterness interceded.

_I can't do that. It's not right. It's not fair._

Christopher was quiet a moment, like he was processing this. _You really want him to be free of you?_

_Yes._

No doubts. Only execution.

* * *

La Push was quiet and undisturbed when I eventually reached it. I'd often wondered what Charlie would have done, if he had known about Edward and his family, and thinking about that had always made me smile a little. Reliable, down-to-earth, hard-not-to-trust Chief Swan, hero to a population of about 2000, and his quaint house with the mismatched kitchen chairs and out-of-place flatscreen and yellowed lace curtains—this picture I had in my head did not sit well with a concept as bizarre, as unrealistic, as _vampires_. And walking now into this isolated little population with its neat little houses, I wondered if Jacob had ever weighed _his_ red house and _his_ favourite mug, chipped near the handle, against a concept as strange as _werewolves_.

I regretted suddenly and vehemently that I had not asked him about it. I knew that it wasn't the same situation: Jacob was not just a spectator of the supernatural, like I was—he was a part of it, it was in his blood. But it was hard to fathom this. It was not congruent with the way I thought of him—sunny, child-like, innocent, warm. My heart ached suddenly for the week in the hospital: the silly conversations we'd had, Jacob's enthusiastic way of talking, looking forward to being discharged and everything we'd do, once I was out of the ward.

So many things we had wanted to do. So much life left to live.

_Bella, why do we have to die?_

It was a rhetorical question, so I just kept walking, following the road to La Push's only store, which itself was scarcely bigger than any of the houses. It was such a small community that I figured somebody there would be able to give me the directions I needed.

A bell tinkled when I went in. The woman at the counter glanced up from what looked like an intent conversation with a tall, well-muscled man. He wasn't wearing a shirt and my stomach dropped like an anchor when I recognized the shape of his skull and the angle of his shoulders.

"Help you?" she asked past him, when I stuck in the doorway, like I had waded into quicksand.

The man followed her gaze over his shoulder when I didn't respond. His expression turned first curious, then cautious, and he took a step away from the woman, separating himself from the counter.

It was odd, how much he should resemble his wolf-self, when he was in the form of a man. And yet there was no mistaking the way he held himself—a little too austere, too detached to be completely believable. There was a lot of strength and responsibility in his facial expression, and a healthy amount of self-righteousness, too. He seemed so much _older_ than Jacob, and less transparent somehow, less naive—but I remembered that he was only about eighteen or nineteen—maybe twenty.

There was no summation in his black eyes, just patience.

"Sam." _My_ lips and _my_ voice, but I felt very far away, like I had ordered a firing squad from the plush comfort of an office several countries distant. "Can I talk to you?"

* * *

"Are you sure you wouldn't rather talk here?" Sam asked, as I pulled myself into his pick-up. It was parked near the back of the store, pointing down a road I'd never taken. He made a show of tweaking the ignition before he looked at me, obviously giving me time to back out. This confused me, but I didn't care.

"No, not here."

He nodded and started the truck, pulling away at a calm pace. The dirt road was bumpy and he drove carefully. More carefully than usual, I guessed, but I didn't comment or complain.

"Is this about Jacob?" he asked, when I remained silent. His voice was confident. Because, all things considered, what else would it be about? He was not expecting my impending suicide.

"No. It's about Victoria."

"Victoria?" Sam repeated, but then his forehead relaxed. "The red-head. The vampire."

"Yes."

"You weren't supposed to know about her," he said, giving a pothole roughly the size of a crater a wide berth. "The lee—Edward," he politely revised, "and his father asked us not to tell you. They said it would upset you and that you'd been through enough."

Sam gave no sign of it but I was sure that he was remembering the night he'd found me, curled up in the forest, cold and dead on the inside. I remembered it, too, but the memory of it no longer hurt me: not the way the empty air felt when I reached for Edward, who was already gone; not the dead way his name sounded when I called for him in the trees; not the way my knees hurt when I crawled into the dark pit and gave up on ever finding him, or life, or reason, again.

All that was lost in the sadness lapping against my skin, like water rising in a tomb. That and the certainty—the overwhelming certainty—that this was needed, necessary. It had all gone on too long. So many people—loved ones—had been put in danger. It was time to end it.

"She's after me," I told Sam, instead of replying. "Because Edward killed James. She wants to kill me."

Sam was frowning even before I'd finished talking.

"They said she was after them."

"They were lying. It's just me. It's always been just me."

Sam didn't look particularly angry. He just nodded and said, "I should have known when they insisted on not telling you anything."

"I put everyone in danger." My voice was small and monotonous; even so, the confession startled me. It was unusually _naked_. Finally I was owning up to the extent of my delusion. "Don't deny it," I added, because Sam had that expression I recognized from Edward, and Jacob, and even Charlie.

Sam glanced at me, pulling up to a small house with splashes of flowers by the windows. "I don't think that's entirely right," he said, but left it at that.

The house was tiny but neat, with surprisingly feminine touches: bright yellow curtains in the kitchen, a series of small paintings by the telephone against the wall, a magnetic picture frame on the fridge. Curious, I leaned closer to inspect this, bouncing back immediately when Sam turned around from where he'd put the kettle on the stove. He motioned for me to sit down at the scrubbed and gleaming kitchen table.

"That's Emily," he said, when I remained silent. "She's visiting her cousin on the Makah reservation."

"Did she paint those?"

Sam followed my gaze to the little paintings and his face relaxed—he smiled gently, his dark eyes the consistency of velvet. "Yes. She's good. Isn't she?" he added, but it was clearly a rhetorical question. I got the idea that they could have been hideous and he still would have liked them.

"Yes. They're very like."

Sam nodded and crossed his arms. Leaning against the counter, it was like the kitchen constricted around him and his sheer size. He was taller even than Jacob. It was stifling and I had to work around the sudden pressing in my throat. I kneaded the fingers of my working arm into my palm, trying to think how to begin, how to explain.

"What's wrong Bella?" Sam asked, when I opened and closed my mouth twice, like a fish on dry land.

I swallowed and tried again. "Victoria is after me."

"You said so."

"If she can't get to me she'll hurt someone else."

"We're working on that," Sam said. He sounded defensive and I guessed that he thought the deaths of the hikers were his fault. He was that type.

"But you haven't managed to catch her yet," I pointed out.

Sam's lips tightened even as he spoke, though the rest of his face remained perfectly neutral—_too_ neutral. "Not yet. It's difficult. We're not allowed onto Cullen land, and she has a knack for getting-"

"What you need," I interrupted him, "is a way to lure her out. _Bait_," I emphasized. "If you had bait you could control the situation, so she wouldn't get away."

The kettle began whistling plaintively but Sam remained perfectly still, his dark eyes suddenly calculating.

"I'm offering," I clarified.

"We couldn't." But his voice was speculative.

"It might be the only way."

"We wouldn't be able to guarantee your safety." This sounded like the beginning of a refusal.

"I'm not asking you to."

"No." Sam shook his head and abruptly shifted the kettle. He had his back to me, and I could see the tension running along his shoulders. I got up and forced myself into his line of vision. This wasn't about him.

"The Cullens won't let me help," I told him, speaking slowly. "They'd rather let more innocent people die." This wasn't entirely a lie, which was probably why Sam didn't refute it: he just breathed evenly and tested the strength of the counter with his fingertips. "But I can't let that happen. Please, Sam. You've got to let me help. You could stop her. You could stop Victoria."

"Jacob will be difficult."

I opened my mouth, but despite my determination I still hesitated. This was crossing a line...but so what?

"_You're_ the alpha," I said, chin-out.

Sam knew I had him, but he was just as crafty: "What if you don't come back? What about Charlie? Your family in Phoenix?"

"I'll be fine."

Sam shook his head halfway through the short sentence. "There are no guarantees, Bella. And without Jacob..."

He stared out the window for a moment. The view wasn't what you'd call panoramic: the trees crowded the house the way kids crowded the exists when school got out.

"You've got to let me help," I repeated. It was a plea.

"_If_ I agree," he said, slowly turning back to face me and crossing his arms again, "we'll have to plan it very carefully. When we're wolves," and his voice became sober, "we're not—not entirely _human_. It's very easy—control is—people can get hurt." His eyes flickered to the picture on the fridge as he continued. "And if we're _hunting_..."

"I understand-" I began, but he cut across me.

"You don't."

"I do." My voice came out hard. "I dated a vampire, remember. And he was _all_ about control. All the time. So I know. And I don't care. We have to stop her Sam. _She_ won't stop. Never."

Sam studied me for a long time—so long I grew uncomfortable under his eyes, which were appraising and doubtful and hopeful all at once. I could see it warring inside him: the _right thing_, which was leaving me well out of it, versus the chance they would get to finish Victoria off. And I knew instinctively that it wouldn't be too hard for them. Victoria wanted me and had been after me for weeks. She wouldn't easily let an opportunity pass to kill me. And if she was distracted—if _I_ could distract her long enough...

Sam finally eased up, relaxing his arms to his sides. "Okay. But like I said, we'll have to plan-"

"No, no planning." I was vehement. "If this gets out to Alice-"

There was a sudden, ear-splitting roar from outside. I had just enough time to register that the blood had dropped out of my face and that the hair on my arms were tingling violently when the door exploded. It was Jacob. He was naked and shaking so badly it looked like he was having a fit.

I automatically turned my head away, but not before I had seen his face. And though the features were his—the deep-set eyes, the furrowed eyebrows, the full lips and soft chin—it didn't look like him. I'd never seen him so furious—I'd never seen _anyone_ so furious, not even Edward.

He was shouting before Sam had even opened his mouth. It was so loud and so angry—it crashed into my head like a train, and it just kept going and going and going. I tried to cover my ears but it didn't help; tried to roll myself into a ball to stop the blows from landing, but Jacob's voice was like nails on a blackboard—it cut right to the deepest, most sensitive parts of my soul. Because the things he said...

_"What the fuck, Sam? How can you let her do this? What's wrong with you? And what's wrong with you, Bella? Do you really want to fucking die that badly? You let _him_ get away with everything and this is your solution? Don't think I don't know what you're doing Bella, I have fucking eyes in my head, I know what this is about! You want to die don't you! Don't shake your head I know it's the truth! You can't lie to me!"_

"_Jacob-!_"

But now Jacob's voice had become my own:

_What's wrong with you? Why can't you just get over him? People get dumped all the time! Don't pretend to be so noble—don't pretend like this is about anybody but yourself! You want to die because it's easier that way, easier for you! No one else matters to you! Not even your father! You're such a selfish bitch!_

The kitchen crashed and shook. I was out into the yard without quite knowing how—and then I was on my knees and on my feet and my legs were screaming and tears pounded at my eyes and I couldn't see properly, I just kept running—scrambling, scratching, falling, clawing—and my arm hurt and my heart lurched in my throat and I couldn't breathe, couldn't breathe.

At some point I fell down. I lay still and the blood guzzled in my ears. Blackness winked in, out, in, out, like someone was playing with a light switch; my head throbbed, my body throbbed, my heart throbbed.

I did not hear it immediately.

Laughter. Slow, quiet, delighted laughter.

I was in the forest: I could see the thick canopy above my head, as dense as a surreal, green ceiling. It was raining again, and everything screamed and tore and thrashed—there were so many hurts it was hard to compute, hard to figure out which went where.

Struggling and gasping I craned upright. The pain increased: sticking, ripping, peeling, burning, livid; a long, low whine escaped my lips as I found the primary source. I didn't need to pull my shirt away to inspect it; it already gaped over my stomach over two brutally bloody gashes that extended from just below my left breast to the hipbone on the opposite side. My jeans were wet with blood.

The smell was so fresh, so saline and so overwhelming that it clouded my senses. Nausea rolled off me in waves. I retched violently and my stomach exploded with pain. My vision wavered, like I was being dunked in a sea of black, but I felt my way out again, out into the world. I had to be sure, so I followed the feeling of my hands. I found them on my stomach, holding it together; moisture made my fingers slip against each other.

A low keen escaped my lips again. It sounded distant—it didn't sound like me at all.

The laughter had stopped.

But there she was—Victoria. Just like I remembered her. Her hair was fire: vividly red and orange, it stood out around her face like a malicious halo. Her skin was like milk against it. She was beautiful of course, but not in the same way as the Cullens. They were almost like statues: perfect, but imitations, in a way...they were trying to be something they were not. Victoria had no such restraint. She was what she was: a vampire. And she had what she wanted.

Her body coiled in on itself. Her face was motionless: no victorious leer, no triumph. Her lips and the babyish gush that had escaped from them were suppressed. She didn't need to gloat anymore, or to goad—she had me, and there was no escape. She knew it and I knew it. All that remained was concentration. All that remained was execution.

I didn't see her jump.

She punched me in the stomach, once, twice. I was on my back and the pain absolutely drowned me. I didn't know which way was up or which way was down. She was all I could see, and the scream that rang in the air—I knew it had to be mine but it didn't make sense because it didn't sound _human_, how could _anything_ sound like that, how could _anything_ be that afraid or that hurt?

She punched me a third time, but an odd thing happened: it was like time stopped and I knew okay, _there_, she'd hit me again, and the scream rose to a pitch to match it, but instead of a fresh volley of pain there was nothing, just numbness, just thick and clotted numbness everywhere.

_Here it comes. _

The blackness around the edges of my vision crackled away like static on a TV. Sound had dimmed. My mouth felt very dry, and my heart too soft. _Here it comes. This is it. I'm sorry. I should have been stronger..._

But she was distracted, studying her hand, which looked like it was encased in a filmy red glove. Her glowing eyes matched the colour. Slowly she breathed; her fingers twitched, and a droplet ran, gathering more of itself as it went, sliding down her wrist—she caught it with the tip of her tongue, which was pale—too pale, almost like her skin.

_Here it comes_, Christopher said, and I realized what he meant.

Her eyes were on me again, but now there was more in them than just hatred or revenge. Now there was desire. Hunger. Thirst.

It was no wonder Edward had hid this part of himself from me. Her expression was like a lover's: perfectly rapt. And it was like a monster's: no compromise.

She lunged. My body compacted around the impact; I could feel my arms and legs lift like a dummy's, and hang in the air before my limbs collapsed in on themselves, collapsed into excruciating pain.

I screamed but there was no air on which it could feed; all I could do was gasp into the tangled mass of flames that suffocated me.

The flames stuttered.

* * *

**A/N: Again, all I can do is apologize for taking my sweet time about updating. Thank you for reading and please review. Do you like where the story is going? Thoughts, questions? Happy New Year! :)**


	10. Chapter 10

10.

I felt heavy, like I was entombed. Stone manacles around my wrists; I'd been tossed overboard and I was sinking, sinking into lightness. The release was very sudden and very peaceful. There was no fear here, and no retribution.

The pain had slipped beyond the tips of my fingers, and I floated.

_I'm free. Finally, I'm free._

* * *

The flames stuttered. The jolt was sharp, the return sudden.

"_Bella!_"

Noise and pain warred. Confusion swarmed around me like bees. It felt like a train had hit me, and hit me again.

"_Don't move her!_" Jacob shouted. He had me half in his arms. I could see my legs sprawled out in an unnatural position where they spilled outside his protective cradle.

"It doesn't matter what we do now," came the calm reply. Sam towered over Jacob. The only sign of stress was in his shoulders, which were hunched together.

"_NO!_" Jacob shouted. He was trembling so violently my vision shook. He was hysterical and I didn't understand why. I couldn't think: it ran through my fingers like sand before I could seize on anything. There was activity everywhere, just beyond the line of my vision.

"No!" he repeated, but this was more of a wail and the word gargled away into meaninglessness. He looked so much like a young child. I wanted to reach up and comfort him but I couldn't move my arms.

"Cob?"

"Bella!"

He was so warm it was stifling everything else: the violent noise, the confusion, the panging, prickling, searing pain that trickled back into my awareness.

I tried to move again but I was trapped; whether from Jacob's hold or paralysis I couldn't tell.

"Jacob," I managed, and tried to move again. The heat was rolling off him in thick waves.

He didn't release me. He just held me tighter and rocked me, like I was the child, like I was the hysterical one.

"Jake." I tried again, tried to push away from him. The heat constricted around me—it made it hard to breathe or see. I squirmed and a million pieces of me crackled in protest, but I had to escape the heat. It was scalding me.

"Jake please." My voice was little more than a flutter. "It's—I can't breathe."

"I'm here," Jacob said. He was crying. Thick tears rolled down his cheeks and into my hair—the moisture was almost cool.

"Jake." I was panicking now. It kept getting hotter and hotter. My temples and my eyes burned; my heart thundered painfully. "Jake, please. Let me go, it's so hot. Jake please, let me go!"

He released me to the cold ground, wet with blood and sweat, and sat back, roughly pushing his fists over his eyes, but this didn't stop the flow of tears. They dribbled off his chin, forming excruciating exclamation marks around his twisted mouth.

I tried to sit, to move, but I couldn't—my legs were useless, and my arms were limp and mostly unresponsive, and the heat was _everywhere_, it kept rolling and rolling, it was like someone had dumped me in gas and set me alight. I didn't understand. It made no sense, and it just kept getting hotter. I screamed for Jacob—my panic made his name unintelligible, but he understood: he swarmed forward and scooped me close to him, squeezing me so hard that it hurt—and I understood then. I understood why he was hysterical, I understood why my consciousness was increasing and not dimming, I understood why I was on fire. I _wasn't_ dying.

I'd felt this before.

The ballet studio: James and his leer and his eyes, his sordid little plan, the fear I felt—the fear for Edward and his family—and the pain. The way it burned and kept on burning, unceasing fire, fire trying to find my heart...

"_No! No, Jacob, n-_" I lost my voice to the heat—my scream hung halfway between my throat and full articulation.

"She doesn't want it either, Jacob," came Sam's voice, beyond my throbbing head.

"_Just shut up!_" Jacob shouted. He shouted it at Sam but his forehead rested against mine. I knew I didn't have much time. There was no time to reason or to scold. There was no time to lose. It had to be stopped. It had to be stopped _now_.

I pushed my way through the fire and put my lips as close to Jacob's ear as I could manage, or distinguish. Everything felt so distorted. It was hard to concentrate.

"Please," I gasped. He smelled like the forest. He smelled like safety and comfort and home. "Please Jake. It hurts so—so much, _please_..."

I felt him shift under me and I was relieved that he should agree so quickly—I closed my eyes and they burned red, _everything_ burned red, but I could soothe myself, almost balm it all away by thinking, _It's not much longer now. Not much longer. Soon, over soon._

"Jacob-" Sam cautioned, but Jacob's response was immediate. His voice was dead.

"I'll do it. You leave me alone!" he added, viciously.

"Let him go," Sam murmured. Someone spat.

"Thank-" I began, but a spasm cut off my air—I bit my tongue until I tasted blood. _No screaming_. I had to have a little dignity—and this was going to be hard enough...

We'd stopped. It was hard to tell how much time had passed. I felt brittle, I felt sick, everything cramped and stabbed and twisted. I tried to open my eyes and for a moment I panicked because I was sure I couldn't find them (was it over already?), but then I realized that I _had_ opened them—it was just dark.

"Bella." Jacob was right in front of me—I could see a little light glinting in his eyes. He was very close. His hand appeared and gently stroked my hair out of my face. His thumb lingered over my lips.

"I'm sorry, Bella," he whispered, shifting his hand to my neck. Was he going to strangle me? It wouldn't be hard for him. He was very strong. "I'm so sorry," he repeated, his voice breaking on the last word. His hand tightened briefly and then he straightened up, disappearing into the darkness. "I can't. Not even if it means—not even if you become like _them_. I can't. But I'll make it better," he promised. "We'll go far away from here. We'll be happy, Bella. I'll make sure of that. We can leave as soon as you're—done. We're safe here."

He kept on talking but a sob and half a shriek broke through my restraint. My body twisted around the boiling metal that was stabbing at every inch of it. I tried to throw it off, I tried to concentrate, tried to find my limbs. Panting, I found first my hands, wriggling my fingers, and then my knees, and pushed myself onto them. Staggering, I straightened out my legs. It was hard to remain upright—the pain kept pushing me down, pitching me forward, pulling me in on myself...

Jacob was gone; I was alone.

There was a glimmer of light ahead and I followed it and suddenly Christopher was there like he'd never left.

_Where are we going?_

_Away_ I thought, desperately. The darkness wanted me—the dark dampness, the thick smell—algae and dirt and pine needles, it didn't make any sense...

The glimmer grew and grew and the pain flayed every muscle that moved and ripped at my skin and my face, but I kept moving—staggering, dragging and wretched till the light was everywhere and I realized dimly, _Outside_.

The cave behind me looked too small and insignificant to hold Jacob: it was barely more than a crack in the ground. I realized I must have scraped myself getting out, but there was such an abundance of hurt. I stared at my arms (the long-sleeved t-shirt I'd been wearing was mostly gone; stark red lines stood out on my skin and there was sweat in my eyes, which must have been why it looked like the lines were fading). I tried to move forward but my knees cramped and I fell. There were pine needles in my face and as my breathing calmed a steady _whoosh-whoosh_ took its place, only it was more of a pounding: rhythmically, almost like a lullaby.

_The sea._

I didn't consciously make the decision to start crawling, but soon I was moving and then I was on my feet, falling more than walking, pulling myself up against the lowest branches of trees and against the spiny outcrops of rock littering the forest floor. The whooshing became louder and louder, and the light kept getting brighter—there was rain again but I barely felt it, barely felt anything—all I could think about was the sea.

I broke clear of the trees and everything disappeared. Shrinking back against the line of the forest, I scrubbed the dirt from my eyes but no, I hadn't imagined it—this wasn't a hallucination—the land _did_ disappear.

I was on a cliff.

I stumbled to the edge. Yes, there, far, far below, was the ocean, almost the same grey as the sky and clouds above it: it was a uniform steel colour, but as the surf beat against the sheer cliffside and crashed into the sharp rocky islands farther out, white foam effervesced and from this distance, it looked soft—almost inviting.

I felt my heart beating desperately, vibrating my whole chest and clawing at the underside of my throat, and I thought of Jacob and his soft hands and his soft eyes, and the promise that he had made, and I realized, _There can be no happy ending._

There could never be a happy ending without Edward, and Edward I had lost. My eyes were beyond fresh tears, but my heart cramped and stuttered, and I staggered forward with it, missed the last step, and fell; for a moment there was nothing, just noise and wind and then I hit the water—I felt my limbs splay at the sudden impact—coldness folded around me, tightly, almost like a hug, like a lover dragging me into the depths...

_Please_. _Please_ _let this be it. Please, please, let this be the end._

* * *

My chest felt heavy and choked. Automatically I opened my mouth and tried to cough and water poured out. I coughed and heaved until it was all out, and flipped onto my back, pulling in air. Pebbles sprayed up around me—I counted them automatically, thinking, _Thirty-six. _They shone like little diamonds and threw up a variety of colours, but the greens and blues were the richest. They looked almost pure. The sound they made when they fell back onto the beach was like rain, but a little sharper. It was strange.

I was washed up on a beach of pebbles, my clothes heavy with water, my hair a tangled torrent on my shoulders, the moon feathering through the thick cloud cover above. I took everything in, took in how very little was moving but the water—the constant water, scraping and gurgling and splashing—the smell of it very salty but somehow delightful—lungfuls of it didn't feel enough, so I kept breathing and breathing and I could tell _so much_.

I could tell that there wasn't anything but beach and forest around for miles—I could tell that it had just stopped raining, and that it would rain again very soon—I could tell that there were animals and insects very much busy in the night, even though the line of trees was several hundred meters away. This beach was almost as round as a coin, and a little way up the pebbles became sand—not sand like at any respectable, sunny beach, but a loose enough variety of dirt to count.

I thought that I should get up and then I was up, and standing very still, though the wind and trees and water swayed around me—I felt the tight pull of my clothes as they refastened on my wet skin, and I felt the tips of my hair move at my sudden motion. I remained still until this stopped and reconsidered.

Something had gone very, very wrong, and I tried to remember what that was—where I had been before I washed up on this beach.

The memories were more than feint—they were truly difficult to decipher, like trying to read a signpost in thick fog, but I twisted my forehead and concentrated all the loose thoughts into one stream. _Remember. The cliff. Falling. Yes. Remember..._

My eyes flew open.

I could remember the feeling of being drowned again and again, but remaining conscious throughout it—how dim the water had been, how dark eventually, how hard it had been to tell which way was which. I remembered being beat against rocks and sending up shivers of sawdust into the water—being scraped against the sandy bottom, thick wires of green slippery against my skin...

I remembered the fire and the way even in the coldest waves it continued to burn and burn and burn, destroying every vestige and every other hurt.

I remembered the last beats of my heart. I remembered my head breaking through the water; remembered walking onto this beach, my chest so heavy...

I looked back at the expanse I had come from, and the dark water was like silk, barely ruffled by the low waves tumbling toward the beach and crowning around my ankles. I noted that my shoes were gone, and how excessively pale my skin looked against the pebbles. I buried my feet in the pebbles and they crunched under the force, so I stopped and stepped away.

A part of me wanted to believe that I was dead—that this was some kind of afterlife—but I couldn't quite buy it. One part of it was my clothes, torn and tattered and, despite their recent repetitive, salty rinse cycle, still stained with blood. I could smell it, through the sand and the water and the hundreds of other, little smells. It was quite vivid, and found its way to my nostrils and down into my throat, which swallowed convulsively, as if it could pull sustenance out of the smell alone. My stomach reacted to that, twisting emptily, and suddenly all I could think about was blood.

I hadn't ever been so thirsty in my life and I automatically began searching for something—_anything_—that could quench it. I was moving before I quite understood my intent. I slipped into the forest. The branches formed a spider web across the halo of the moon, and I knew it was dark but I could still _see_ everything: everything was so rich, so velvety. I ran my fingers against the trees and along the leaves, stealing deeper and deeper into seclusion. The sound of the ocean dimmed a little. I stood still again.

I could smell something now, something mildly, faintly appealing—more appealing than anything else close by, but far less appetizing than the smell of my own, soaked blood. I evaluated and found that it was probably a deer, though I couldn't be sure. All I knew for certain was that it was hot, wet, and close by—it drew me in as soon as I came to this conclusion, and I was moving again.

It was a deer, small, barely taller than the shrubs where it was lying. I didn't think anything else of it—I rushed forward—I moved fast but nothing blurred—the creature didn't even have time to wake up—I had it and crushed it against me in my desperation. I buried my face in its neck and my teeth found their way through its skin and muscle until its blood exploded into my mouth. It smelled disgusting but it was something wet for my dry, dry throat. I sucked until there was nothing left.

Stepping away from the limp, crushed body, I straightened a little. One part of me was scanning for the next meal, but another kept my gaze transfixed on the small animal, and a wave of sadness washed over me, and that was when it sunk in properly, when my sense finally caught up to my expanded brain and my desires, when my emotions found their way out again, and suddenly I was all livid remorse and agony, and I realized that _this_ was it—I was still _alive_, for lack of a better term—alive, and completely, utterly alone.

The despondency was so great and so sudden. It felt like I'd stepped off the chair with the noose tight around my throat.

Because _this_ should have been shared with Edward...our first hunt together. This—and I stared down at my hard white arms—should have been his choice, and of his making. It should have been him there with me, sinking his teeth into my throat, all the desire and longing he so desperately, fervently kept under control freed for once. I had wanted him to look at me like Victoria had—like nothing less than my everything could ever be enough...

But of course he never would have, whether I lived years more, or died. He didn't want me.

_Remember_ I told myself. _He left. Remember?_

I remembered. Dimly, vaguely—but the details didn't matter. Not the way the forest became still when he was in it, not the way his lips brushed against my forehead, not the way his eyes looked: little more than stone, cold, hard, dead stone.

_He left, and _I_ never came back._

The anger was sudden and ferocious, crashing like a car through a barrier, and my emotions were all rubble. I was on my knees, like I was praying, and death was at the edge of every thought, every memory—a bullet here, a razor there, suffocation and pain and desperation and loneliness—the most acute, the most severe: _I'm all alone, and there's no way out._

Because what did you do, what _could_ you do, when you were immortal and invincible?

This thought trapped me like a prison and for ages I just sat there, appalled, my entire wretched existence spilling out in front of me like yarn off a spindle, the misery looping on and on...

_I should have done it while I had the chance_, I thought, paralysed. _There rust, and let me die—_

_I don't envy him the girl—just the ease of the suicide..._

My extremities, still in any case, froze: I could feel every muscle locking down, and my mind reacted as if threatened. It wanted me to crouch down and re-evaluate, but another part of it already knew that there was nothing here. The danger was _inside_. The memory had flared like light in pitch blackness and I stood blinded by it for a long moment.

_What's a Volturi?_

The Volturi. _You don't irritate the Volturi._..

My mind was like a computer; quick and certain. It went over everything simultaneously, calculating where I was and wondering where exactly _they_ were. I was here, in America, and they were in Rome. I thought about the money in the balled up sock under my bed at home, but that meant going back, and in Forks...

The Cullens and the pack.

Were they looking for me? How long would it have taken Sam and the others to find out about Jacob's treachery? How long until Alice realized, until Edward was told? How long had I been in the water?

But more immediate than that: Alice. My thoughts zeroed in on her like she was a target: her pointy, silky black hair, her big eyes, the mischievous smile, her little tumble weed body...and her uncanny ability.

She couldn't have seen me with the wolves, though she knew I'd been heading there, but she _could_ see vampires much more clearly than she could humans—and I was now one of them. I was now a vampire.

My throat still burned away and thirsted, but I had to ignore it; I had to plan, or actually—_not_ plan. I couldn't make up my mind too solidly, couldn't reach any firmer decision than I already had. Then perhaps I could escape her vision. Then perhaps I could-

_No, no_. I shook my head. I had to retain focus. Maybe I had a little bit of a lead—I was washed here, and there was no way Alice could know where I was when _I_ didn't even know. I had a head-start. I just had to make good on it. I had to keep moving.

Immediately I was jogging, but my limbs broke easily, carelessly, into a run, and then a sprint: I knew I was moving fast but I could see every little detail, every little impression in the dark. I noticed that the forest became still when I passed by, and this twisted my mouth and my insides. One of them...but not a Cullen. Never a Cullen.

Perhaps—this thought occurred to me suddenly—perhaps now that I was a vampire, Edward would reconsider. Now that I was strong and unbreakable and (probably—I had no mirror to tell) beautiful. Now that he could kiss me and hold me and _have me_ without killing me. Now that my blood no longer tortured him...

I slowed automatically, but the pain swelled in relation to my stillness so I sped up again.

The truth was, none of that had been the problem. Not my humanity or my soul or my blood. It was me. _Me_. Bella Swan. My personality; the sum of my parts. Nothing more, nothing less.

It was an attractive notion, blaming my humanness for Edward's abandonment. But it wasn't abandonment—nothing that dramatic. It was just a break-up. He didn't love me. He'd only stayed long enough to make sure. Boy, girl...

The dirt suddenly became tar, the trees disappearing around the thin ribbon of road that wound away through the forest. It was abandoned. It stretched, dark and quiet, in both directions; I evaluated it but couldn't place it—but I thought it was probably the best place to start regardless. I started running again, not bothering going into the forest. There were no vehicles and I would hear them long before they could see me.

It didn't take very long. For a few minutes my feet pounding lightly were the only sounds, but then I could hear trails of commotion—nothing exuberant, just the hustle of engines. The sound carried farther than I thought, because it took another few minutes till I could see anything. I slipped deeper into the shadows. Sure enough, the road expanded and rolled into a truck stop: there was a gas station, its lighting tinny, and a diner attached to it. There were only a few people around.

I made it a point to sniff the air: I inhaled deeply, half-thinking that this was the wrong thing to do. The smells were numerous: oil, engine, fuel, asphalt, wet trash, tires, cigarette smoke and—more faint; they were all huddled up in the diner, which was shut securely against the dripping rain—unmistakeably, the scent of humans, of blood. It was warm and pounding. My throat twisted; my stomach responded. I was stealing forwards without quite intending to, though there was no denying that I wanted it.

_So this was what Edward felt_ Christopher chimed suddenly.

My legs slowed; I almost stood still. I hadn't thought about that yet.

_And your blood was special to him_ Christopher continued. _Imagine what _he_ felt, being near you. And these are just ordinary people. See?_

There were five people in the diner that I could see. Two were waitresses, wearing unflattering teal-coloured uniforms beneath yellowed, lace-edged aprons. They moved around languidly behind the counter, one wielding a coffee pot, the other serving a greasy meal. There were three men, obviously truckers. They looked worse for wear, rumpled and unshaven and tired. Their trucks were parked outside: two lumber trucks with full loads, one empty. I wondered where they were headed. Lumber was big industry in these parts, but it felt like I'd never even noticed it. Right from the start, almost from the minute of my arrival in Forks, I'd only been focused on one thing—Edward. I regretted that now.

The misery felt like cement setting around my wrists and ankles, locking me into its unmoving grip. This (I couldn't help look at my hands; they seemed so foreign) was all that I had wanted, and now that I had it it felt like the most foolish thing in the world to have wished for. I finally understood why Edward had wanted me to have my 'human experiences'; finally understood that the divide between humans and humanity and vampires was much bigger than I had thought.

It was only shallow understanding—I knew that, too. Like light being gradually turned up, allowing you to recognise more things as time passed. But I could already feel the beginning ebb. It was like the world had sped up around me and I couldn't move my legs fast enough to keep up. I felt even more clumsy than I had before-

I moved my head to stave off the rest of the inner monologue, but the word rested on my lips, full of memories. Before. Before, before, before...

Before _this_. Before _him_.

Of course, his insistence on my human experiences was double-edged: he hadn't wanted me obsessed with vampires because he'd never had any intention of turning me. It was folly to have imagined otherwise. Just another part of my delusion, my assumption that in the end he _would_—in the end he'd cave, and we'd be together for always.

But that had been before.

I felt weary and my throat hurt, its heat turning my mouth into sandpaper. I'd been so preoccupied with the new onslaught of discoveries that I didn't notice the trucker until he was only a small way away from me. He'd walked around his truck; for what reason I didn't know. Maybe he wanted to check the wheels or the heavy bolts fastening the chains around the long arms of timber. Maybe he was planning on urinating in the bushes. Maybe it was some kind of strange, ludicrous, evil serendipity.

I tried to move but I couldn't. My body was tight with anticipation and my throat was absolutely alive with thirst and hunger. Every sense and thought turned to the pulsating heart beating so close by...

There was a tingle in my temples, followed quickly by numbness, thickening just beyond the line of my skin; for a very brief moment, everything else wavered: all I could hear was Christopher, and all I could feel was the rubbery suspension around my head.

_You don't want to do that, Bella. It's a person. Hold your breath and hide. It'll be over soon. I promise. _

The trucker waded around the end of his truck, the side facing away from the diner, his cap pulled over his eyes to shield them from the rain. I hadn't noticed the precipitation, but when I moved I caught the wet glimmer of the droplets where they sparkled on my skin.

I stood, motionless, at the head of the truck, my body pressed tightly against it. I heard him move around and slap the side of the machine, grunting, before he clambered into the cab; by that time I was at the back again, lightly pulling myself onto the load. I found a niche between two huge trunks and settled myself in them. The chains protested only a little when I wiggled around too vigorously, but I let up and the truck pulled away without incident, rolling slowly down the road, building up speed.

_I did it_ I thought, still feeling dazed from the sudden onslaught of the thirst. A big part of me wanted to swing myself into the cab through the window and pluck out his throat, but another part—heavy with anxiety—kept me in place, staring straight up at the sky whirring away beyond the thick fringe of trees.

It was growing lighter and soon, I knew, it would be day. Terror pushed past my wind pipe. What would I do? Where would I go?

What I wouldn't give, I though bitterly, for _familiarity_. Couldn't I go to Alice—wouldn't she help me, even if her brother didn't want me? Or would they have left as soon as they knew what had happened? If not Alice, Jacob? Him I'd deserted. It hadn't occurred to me that he had needed to escape as much as me, back there in the cave. _My_ selfish solution, when I realized there would be no Edward in my future, had been to toss myself off a cliff. I wondered if Jacob would have left La Push regardless, or if his pack had forced him out. Perhaps he was looking for me...but then, why would he? Maybe he thought I was dead. Maybe he _wished_ I was dead. I did.

And my parents. Renee had Florida and Phil—Charlie had no one. What would he be told? Surely the Quileutes would cover it up. _They_ couldn't move away like the Cullens. They couldn't disappear. Would Charlie suspect something? What would he do?

I shuddered, remembering the big wolves and their fierce eyes. They called themselves protectors—protectors of their clan. And if they thought Charlie was a threat to their safety, to their security...

No, it was obvious that whatever I did in my immediate future (and I was still trying to be as vague about that as I could; I prayed that Alice would not see enough to stop me), leaving a trail for Charlie would have to be a part of it. I had to leave something for him and Renee to believe even after the Volturi had trampled my ashes into the dust. I owed them so much more than that...but what else could I do?

_You could go back. Charlie would understand. You know how he is. He'll figure something out for himself. You wouldn't have to lie._

_And the wolves?_

_You have no quarrel with them, and besides, what you are is none of their business. They cut a deal with the Cullens; why not you?_

_Yeah, but the Cullens._

_I know._

No, I couldn't do that; I'd have to make due some other way. Find a fake passport, sneak onto a ship, anything. But I couldn't go back.

Bella Swan was dead.

* * *

I did not recognize the first signs of the town when they slipped past me, but I soon smelled the blood of the early-risers: warm and fresh. It was almost dawn, but the clouds were packed tightly across the sky, which was a relief. I jumped off the back of the truck at a deserted intersection and headed immediately for the cover of the trees that, like Forks, were not very far from the road.

I waited until the noise from the truck's engine had faded before I began to trail slowly along in the woods, parallel to the road. There were houses, most of their occupants still safely asleep. I was careful to hold my breath when I went past a yard, but nothing, not even the peter of traffic, could drown out the sounds of beating hearts. At one point the yearning grew so fierce that I stopped to watch the progress of a couple with a toddler as they packed into their SUV, but I managed to wait until they had gone to start breathing again.

_We're doing all right _Christopher said and I silently agreed. I was grateful. I did not want to do any more harm when I was planning to leave this—earth, life—as quickly as I could. One last kindness, maybe even a weak attempt to make up for all the wrongs I had committed—but that felt like bargaining and I had nothing to bargain with. It made me uneasy.

It was at this point that I became aware of my own appearance. I stared down at my clothes, or what remained of them anyway. My shirt was torn across the waist and stained black with blood; my jeans had more holes than not; and my hair was limp and bedraggled and filled with debris. The desire for _my_ house and _my_ room and _my_ bathroom fired up again but I suppressed it savagely. After a minute or two of consideration, I flitted out of the forest, cleared the back fence and scaled the wall, swinging myself lightly into the house through the window. I crossed the bedroom I was in (pink, frilly and filled with stuffed animals) and pushed open the door, stepping into the hallway.

Carefully, scanning the sounds, smells and sights I padded down to the main bedroom. It was strange—I did not feel particularly awkward about crossing the space to the dresser, and rummaging through it; it was like it could have been my own. I started yanking out appropriate attire. The woman I had seen had looked about the same size as me, so I felt comfortable taking a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt and underwear. These I laid out on the bed. The shower was in the bathtub. I turned up the water, quickly checking each bedroom window before heading back into the bathroom, peeling off my sodden clothes and stepping in under the stream of hot water.

The grime was not hard to lift: I just ran my hands along my skin and it came loose. The water pooling at my feet was an ominous red-brownish colour, and heavy with sand. I had sand in places I didn't know existed.

My hair washed easily as well. I yanked my fingers through it, and it smoothed out under the flow of water, like it had been conditioned, only I hadn't used either shampoo or conditioner. When I was done I wrung it out, but it slipped free of the twist. There were no knots.

I stepped out of the shower, bundling into a white towel, enjoying the warm way I felt now. It was almost uncomfortable, but I knew that my own skin was icy to the touch, and I relished the thought that I could mimic something I'd always taken for granted.

The pleasure evaporated, however, in a gurgle of fear. I swung around, my hair slapping the side of my face, before I realized what I had seen. Slowly I moved forward, gingerly raising a hand to the fogged up bathroom mirror, like it was venomous. I smeared my palm over it; my stomach leapt again, but this time I managed to remain still.

The woman in the mirror couldn't possibly be me. She was dangerously beautiful. Her skin was white and pristine, her face heart-shaped and perfect, her dark hair, even wet and tousled, framing her slim nose and full lips perfectly. The only fault was her eyes. The irises were a vicious, blood-dropped cherry red, and completely unanimated. It was like looking into the face of a corpse.

Pain wracked me. I had to grip the towel rail for support, but it warped in my hand, like it was made of warm butter. I detached myself from it, leaving it dangling, crippled, from the wall, and breathing hard through my mouth, I thrashed out of the bathroom. I was afraid I would see the woman again, because she wasn't me. _This_ shouldn't have belonged to me without Edward. She was the future he didn't want, and she had no existence outside of that.

I yanked on the clothes, trying as best as I could to ignore the scent that clung to them. I dumped the towel in the laundry hamper standing in the corner of the bedroom and was preparing to leave when I remembered that I was barefoot. It didn't really make a difference, but it felt wrong to leave without putting on footwear, especially since I could see that it was raining again outside, a steady pour that would probably last the whole day. I found a pair of old boots in the closet. I tried them on—they were too big, but they'd be fine with a pair or two of socks. I also took an oversized raincoat. Finally done, I returned to the child's room and let myself out the window.

The jump looked high, but my body knew what to do without my anxiety; my legs bunched together, easily absorbing the impact, and the next instant I'd slipped back into the trees.

I jogged for hours.

The town slipped away, but another one soon took its place, and by the time it was night I couldn't deny that I'd reached a city: lights twinkled in its bay, their sparks disrupted by the jostling surface of the water—it was still raining. My feet found asphalt; I reduced my pace to a walk, listening ahead and picking the most deserted paths. A city was probably the best place to be, seeing as I needed to figure out how to get to Rome. I wondered how long it would take me to track down-

_No, don't think about that_ I told myself, willing the anxiety away until it was little more than a constant, but vague, ache in the back of my neck. _Off-limits. First I'll need cash, and then a forger, unless I can __find a boat that-_

I was in a deserted industrial area: the closest people were, I estimated, about three blocks away, in what sounded like a bar. There were no cars here and no pedestrians. It reminded me a little of that alley in Port Angeles, but these warehouses were much larger, monstrous, bolted affairs that rose storeys into the air, their small-paned windows glittering malevolently in the glare of the street lights.

Here everything smelled awful—gas, oil, waste, all unpleasant odours that drove the feeding instinct from me. When I caught _this_ smell, however, the hairs at the nape of my neck pricked ominously. I was being watched, and not by a human.

My feet had stopped. Listening, I could hear someone breathing—slow, relaxed breaths, and more of the smell. It was a sweet smell, almost like oranges, or was it spring?

I turned automatically toward the direction of the breathing. Someone was standing in the narrow gap between two warehouses, where the sidewalk was paved with weeds and discarded trash. I could make out a glimmer of white skin and red eyes; then the flash of a smile. Slowly, deliberately, he stepped out into plain view.

I didn't recognize him. He was pale-skinned and handsome, of course; his hair was a chestnut colour, his lips more narrow than Edward's, and amused. His cheekbones were pronounced, but the overall effect was one of softness. He looked about twenty-five but it was hard to tell. His skin was as smooth as any vampire's, and his eyes, a dull maroon colour, looked young.

We stood staring at each other for a few minutes. I wanted badly, instinctively, to run, but something had occurred to me, and I grabbed at it desperately: maybe I wouldn't need to go all the way to Rome...

"You're far away from your friends," he said. His voice was a tangent drawl.

Fear prised at the edges of my stomach. How did he know about the Cullens? I didn't even know where I was!

"What?" I demanded, and started violently: it was the first time I'd heard my new voice. It was as strange and unwelcome as the face in the mirror: soft, like petals and bells chiming. I only righted myself just in time, but the man across from me had noticed. He frowned slightly.

"Your friends," he repeated, like I was slow. "Hard to miss them, seeing how they're eating the whole city. At this rate it won't be long before _they_ step in...but then, you wouldn't know about that." He stated this last confidently, tilting his chin slightly. He was attractive, but I regretted wondering whether he was more handsome than Edward.

_Impossible. Edward is..._

_No, no. Edward _was_._

"About what?" I asked, speaking as much to distract my thoughts as to find out what he meant.

"We're not supposed to draw attention to ourselves. The Masters will take action."

My intuition flashed; of course. How ironic. "You mean the Volturi?"

"So it's wilful disobedience, is it?" He said this wryly, but he definitely sounded more interested than before.

"I don't know what you're talking about." I checked the road I'd been heading down. It was still deserted, but the man had followed my gaze. He cocked his head to one side, narrowing his eyes at me.

"I don't believe you," he replied.

It was strange that, with all that had happened, something as trivial as his attitude could annoy me, but it did. "Believe what you want," I told him, but then chewed at my lip—but it failed to comfort me. My teeth felt too sharp against the skin.

I had to do something, which was why I hesitated. When would another opportunity like this come along? I knew, from what Edward had told me, that there weren't many vampires. The odds of running into another one...

But he'd spoken of others. _Your friends_. Not the Cullens. Here? In the city? Is that what he'd meant? How far had I washed away?

We surveyed each other another moment. I wondered how angry I should make him. And would he do it, even if he were angry?

"There's something strange about you," he said finally. He sounded unhappy; the frown that cleaved his forehead was pronounced. "Like a...like a bubble. I can't tell if you're speaking the truth or not. Usually I can." He flickered a smile, but it was like blood oozing.

"You're not the first," I said carefully.

"So you _are_ with them." He jerked his head over his shoulder.

"I'm not _with_ anybody." I hoped that this would convince him that I was vulnerable enough to kill outright, without fear of retribution. "I woke up alone."

"Ah," he said, and the smile flickered again. "That happens more than you'd imagine. It can't have been long ago."

"A day. Two."

"Now you're lying." His voice was light and triumphant.

"No, I'm not."

He blinked and stared at me again, the smile fading into another frown.

"Two days, and you're _this_?" he said.

"What?" I asked again, but he only chuckled.

I didn't know what else to do. I was afraid the conversation would end and that he'd leave before I got a chance to—what? Suicide by vampire?

But it was the only way. How much better if I could do it now, without risking anyone finding me before I could go through with it—if anyone was looking for me. But I knew that Edward would come, if he thought I was about to seriously harm myself. It was his nature.

No choice left to me, I stuck my hands out and shoved the man.

It was a naïve move and I didn't put all my strength into it. He staggered back a few steps and then, in a flash he was behind me. He had his arm around my neck in a chokehold.

_Yes!_ I thought.

"What was that about?" he asked, curiously, like this happened often. His body was hard against my back. He was tall and well-built, but not as seriously muscled as Emmett.

In response I bit his forearm. He swore; he pushed me face-first onto the road, holding onto my arms.

_Do it_ I thought, desperately. _Kill me_.

"What's wrong with you?" he demanded, releasing my arms and stepping back.

_Everything_ I thought. But instead of saying anything, I flipped over and flung myself at him. He side-stepped it easily, using my one arm to fling me against the steel hide of a warehouse. There was a sound like thunder clapping; the whole structure wobbled.

I was on my feet in an instant, crouching as I faced him. I jumped at him again.

This time he didn't move. He caught me and we tumbled onto the road, the tar splitting where we landed and cracking away in a spiderweb. I was lying awkwardly half on top of him. He held my shoulders.

"If you want to rip off my head, now is your chance," he said calmly, waiting. His eyes were very deliberate, very reasonable—and almost black. The red in them was little more than a glimmer.

I gawked at him, surprised. I opened my mouth but no words came out.

"Thought so," he said wryly, picking himself off the road. I slid away from him, rising steadily to my feet. "You wanted me to attack you, is that it?" He cocked an eyebrow and smirked. "Also more common than you would think."

"I have to," I whispered. I was both mortified and utterly, crushingly disappointed; my shoulders sagged and my stomach felt like lead.

"Why?" he asked. He had his arms crossed. I could see his muscles bulge beneath the button-down shirt he wore.

"I can't—he didn't want-"

He nodded when my voice faltered, seeming to understand. _He didn't want. _

"Regardless," he said, "I'm not going to kill you, but if you attack me again I'll take off your arms."

"Fine," I said. I could see that this wouldn't work, but instead of pouring over the failure, I focused my attention on what I needed to do.

"Where are you going?" he asked, sounding surprised, when I turned my back on him and started down the road again, going in the opposite direction of where I'd come from.

"You said there were others nearby."

"And you're going to go to them?" He chuckled, falling into step beside me.

I ignored him and walked faster, but he easily kept up.

"And if they don't want to help?" He was amused.

"Then the Masters will. What?" I asked, annoyed at his staring.

He shrugged. "They'll just as soon kill you for irking them with such a trivial question, so in theory that's a good plan." His tone of voice was light, like he was commenting on the weather. "It will take time, though. One thing about the ancients...they don't measure time like we do. You could wait—oh, weeks for a decision."

Another flash of insight. A voice whose cadence I couldn't quite pin down. _You don't irritate the Volturi_. "Maybe I'll do something to rush them along."

"Like?"

"Annoy them."

"You've got it all figured out, then?"

"Yes."

"And yet you're walking down this street when the ones you're looking for are that way." He pointed off to his left.

We stopped walking. I glared at him.

"What's your problem?" I demanded.

He smiled nonchalantly. "I don't think you should go see them." He gestured vaguely with his chin. "If you want to go to the Masters, fine. But them? There is something strange going on with them. And if you go there and the Volturi find that out—and they will—they might go after more than just you. Like your family—you probably still have family? And that boy you were-"

"Shut up!" The anger pulsed, sudden, quick and vehement, throbbing behind my eyes, but the rubbery sensation flared in response and reluctant calm seeped into my throat.

He didn't look perturbed in the least. "And how were you planning on getting to the Masters, anyway? You don't look like someone with a passport in your pocket. I can smell the human," he added, per explanation.

I couldn't argue with that, but I didn't want him to know that—but he already did. He smirked.

"Right again."

"You didn't want to help me," I said, accusingly. "Why do you care?"

"Because I don't make a habit out of letting people get killed."

"But eating them is okay?" I said this in as cold a voice as I could.

This time it was his turn to glare.

"You're hardly one to judge," he commented. He stared into my eyes pointedly.

"I haven't fed on a human."

"Sure you haven't." The sarcasm was jaded.

"I don't have time for this." I started walking again; to my annoyance, he followed, loping along gracefully.

"That keen to get yourself killed?"

"Just leave me alone. I don't-"

"-have time for this. You said."

We continued on for a while in silence. I was weaving myself deeper into the city, following the direction he'd pointed out in a vague sort of way, thinking that it wouldn't matter if the others killed me—they knew nothing about me that could lead the Volturi to Forks and Charlie. The man was quiet. He seemed content to stride by my side, scanning the buildings we passed, the sky, the people. The streets were getting more populous; with each footstep it became harder to breathe. Finally, I had to stop.

He stopped too.

"All steam-rollered out?" he asked.

"Where are the others, exactly?"

"Other side of the city," he said casually, indicating again.

"_What?_"

"You really are new, aren't you?" he asked, my demand ringing sharp and angry in the air. A passerby scuttled away desperately, nearly falling into the gutter. Contrition made me take a step away from the poor person, who gave me a frightened look over her shoulder.

"The emotions are tough when you're just starting out. Overwhelming. Especially anger. And love," he added, as an afterthought.

"You said they were here!" I tried to keep my voice quiet, but it leeched, furious. My fingers curled in on themselves. I wanted to attack the man. His throat was unprotected.

"I lied," he said. "I didn't want you to die. Not before you've thought about what you're planning to do." He didn't look at all guilty.

"What I do is absolutely none of your-"

"It is, since you tried to use me to do it in the first place. But," he added, quickly, "I'll make you a deal. If you give life a fair shot—a few days, a week—and if you haven't changed your mind, I'll take you to the Masters myself. What do you think? Can you bear to exist a week longer?"

No. I wanted to shout it, hard and clear. But a tiny part of me hesitated over the one syllable. One week. Seven days. Maybe...

But it was inconceivable that anything should change in that time. I would still be this; Edward would still not love me. There was no changing _that_.

_Seven days, Bella._

_It won't make any difference._

_We don't know that._

I looked at the man. He was waiting, face patient.

_If it doesn't work...he'll take you to the Volturi. _

"Okay," I agreed.

* * *

**A/N: Wow, this took a horribly long time, for which I offer profuse apologies and the promise of some saucy bits in future :D **

**What do you think of the chapter overall? Is vampire Bella plausible?**

**Originally, I had her attack and kill the trucker, but I think her 'power' plays a significant part in the control of her thirst, so I rewrote that bit (for those interested, in the original chapter she dumped his body in the ocean afterward. It didn't seem very Bella-ish, though.) And I introduced an OC. He looks somewhat like Hayden Christensen, but with more brawn. **

**Just to be clear, 'the others' are the army that Victoria created, in its beginning phase. Riley has already been turned, along with a couple of stragglers.**

**Thank you for reading, and please review :)**


	11. Chapter 11

11.

"This isn't your house." I could smell the lingering human scent, and knew instinctively that they couldn't have left more than a day or two ago. I wondered if Patrick had killed them, and felt a twinge of uncertainty, following him into the spacious living area. Big windows looked out over the dark harbour. The place reminded me a lot of the Cullen house: an eclectic, expensive mismatch of items greeted me, all arranged, I guessed, to enjoy the benefit of the light, when there was any. But he'd left the room dark.

"No. I'm just borrowing it." He sunk into a modern armchair, watching me as I took a seat opposite him on a long, cream couch.

"Did you kill them?" This was part curiosity...and part desperation. I hadn't entirely dismissed the idea that he might murder me, saving me an enormous amount of trouble.

He chuckled. "Actually they went on vacation. I was in the harbour when they left. They have a boat," he expanded, when I didn't respond. "I've been using it, pretending I'm family."

"That's...nice."

He smiled ruefully. "Not really, but it's better than roaming. After a while it gets..." Now it was his turn to search for an appropriate word. He settled for, "...boring," but grimaced. "Or tiring. Only we don't get tired."

"So why don't you settle down?" I asked, frowning.

He looked at me like I was insane. "Settle down? How?"

"Get a house. Find a job."

"And slaughter my neighbours?" He was still smiling a little, but the words came out strange. They sounded forced.

"And your neighbours here?" I countered.

"It's a city, Isabella. Things happen in cities. But after a while," he amended, grinning, "even the locals will get suspicious. Suspicious is bad," he clarified. "Suspicious gets you an unfriendly visit from the Volturi. But you already know all about that." He stared at me intently. It was different from the way Edward used to look at me, like he was frustrated by the silence of my brain. Patrick seemed to enjoy it.

"There are other ways," I said, but I edited the words before I spoke them. I didn't want Patrick to know about the Cullens.

"To feed?"

"Yes. Animals."

He actually laughed. "Animals can't sustain us."

"Yes, they can," I insisted. "They don't taste that great, but-"

"You've eaten animals?" He was clearly sceptical.

"Yes, I have." In favour of winning the argument I didn't point out that it had been only one.

We exchanged silence for another moment. The rain had picked up outside. It lashed against the big windows in giant whips of water, and the wind pounded the boats outside against the marina.

"That's what you've been trying to do, isn't it?" I asked, when Patrick didn't say anything. He was looking at a spot just past my shoulder, but when I spoke he shifted his gaze to mine. "Find another way. Yeah." I nodded, a little amused at his surprise. "That happens more often than you'd think."

A smile flickered, despite his best attempts to remain stoic. "Is that so?"

"Apparently."

He shifted forward, putting his elbows on his knees and leaning closer to me. "Animals?" he repeated. His nose crinkled, but more in amusement than genuine disgust.

"Big game is better, but any animal will do," I said, recalling, not without difficulty, the few times Edward had explained their eating habits to me in any detail. At the time I'd thought it was some ridiculous instinct of his, to protect me against the reality of what he was. But the more I thought about it, the more suspicious I was growing of even our most trivial conversations. It felt like he was a stranger; like the boy I'd loved had been a shade, a pretence. Or maybe the Bella I'd been with him was the pretence. I felt light years away from who I had been. I felt..._changed_. Not just on the outside; not just in the way I'd wanted.

"And it—it quenches...?" Patrick's forehead was scrunched up, like he was struggling with the concept.

"Mostly, yes." I was thinking about the trucker.

"And it doesn't harm you?"

Of course I couldn't tell him that Carlisle and his family had survived decades on animal blood without any repercussions, so I just said, evasively, it sounded to me, "I'm here, aren't I?"  
He scanned my face before he replied. His voice sounded strange again. "Yes," he said. "You are."

"If you want to try it, I'll go with you," I suggested. I was almost as surprised by my offer as Patrick. I didn't know where it came from, but it wasn't motivated by my private little suicide pact, or even distraction. Maybe it was because I could empathise with him. Patrick was as alone as I was. How would I have felt, thirsting after humans that I did not want to harm, but not knowing that there was another way?

"If you say it works..." he said, doubtfully.

"It does."

He studied my face again. "Then thank you." He was embarrassed, but he sounded sincere. "We'll go tomorrow night. It's almost dawn, and I'm not sure if the rain will last. I take it you know that we can't...?"

"Go into the sunlight where people can see? Yeah."

Patrick didn't look surprised, but his eyes narrowed a little. "Say, if you're only two days old, and you awoke alone, then how do you know so much about vampires?"

I grimaced; he flickered a smile, but then his expression turned serious. He fixed me with a look I knew because it was one Edward had often given me: like he was trying to read my mind. I dropped my gaze, eyeing the coffee table and its contents. It was strewn with magazines.

"You aren't going to tell me, are you?" Patrick didn't sound offended, just convinced.

"I can't."

He digested that, then nodded. "I suppose that makes sense."

"It does?" I felt a faint smile crease the corners of my mouth.

"Yes. I thought you were running away from what you've become." He motioned vaguely at me, where I sat, knotted tightly together, on the couch. "But it's more than that. You're running away from someone. My guess is that man you mentioned. And I'm guessing that he's like us."

The depth of his observation startled me, but my cheeks remained bloodless and my face empty.

"I'm sorry," he added, after another moment.

"I attacked you. I guess you're allowed to speculate," I said, trying to make light of it, but my insides prickled with panic. Was it that obvious to everyone, how pathetic I was?

"Not about that." And Patrick didn't look like he regretted what he'd said. "I'm sorry that he didn't want what you did. Isabella?"

Reluctantly I met his eyes. He looked apologetic. He'd moved a little closer—I could smell his breath in my hair. It was almost orangy, but not quite.

"Yes?" My own breath hitched in my throat. Familiar, traitorous feelings bubbled to the surface at his proximity.

He hesitated, then reached out slowly. I thought he was going to take my hand, but he just pressed his fingertips against the top of my wrist. His skin was smooth and warm, his touch fleeting.

"I'm..." He struggled, then chuckled and smiled, shaking his head. He withdrew his hand, but he didn't sit back. Maybe he was as unable to move as I was. I wanted to, but my body felt like it had been electrocuted. Deep down I knew it wasn't right. Patrick wasn't Edward, and _this_ wasn't real—I only had a few days left. But the shallow feelings were overwhelming. The unacknowledged longing for comfort; not wanting to die; wanting to go home.

Desire burned at the edges of my lips. But for what? For who?

"Why don't you want me to die?" Despite the inner turmoil, the words came out chiming and perfect.

At first I thought he wasn't going to reply. He stared at me, face mild, a little hitch of frown between his straight eyebrows. His eyes were quite beautiful. They weren't as bright as mine—in fact, they were almost black, but when he turned his head a certain way the little light struck the ruby and...well, not _sparkled,_ but shone, like something shiny winking in the distance on a sunny day.

"Because if there is a chance for you...then maybe there is a chance for me," he said, finally. "It's quite bizarre," he continued, staring out the window, "that I should run into you when I myself was considering..." He chuckled, shaking his head. The sound was low and remorseful.

I straightened a little. "You mean, you were-?"

"I considered the _others_," he explained. "That's why I came to Seattle. I read the papers, and I thought that if someone was foolish enough to create _that_ in the middle of Seattle, then perhaps they'd kill me willingly enough—if not for the fact that I'm competition, then for some other reason. Inevitably most vampires will find one. We're quite despicable." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"Not all vampires are like that." I thought about Carlisle, and Esme—and Edward.

"No. But it's very easy to slip into the habit."

I opened my mouth, but closed it again without levelling an argument. That part I could agree with. It was something I could feel, an urge just beyond the edges of my consciousness.

"But you didn't go through with it," I pointed out, shifting my focus.

"No, I didn't," he agreed, "and I'm still not quite sure why. Whether it's them or the Volturi...it doesn't make much of a difference. I lied about that." He flashed me an apologetic look.

"I know."

We were quiet for a long time. The storm eased up, the last of the rain turning butterfly-soft against the big windows. The spatters on them glistened as the clouds cleared, letting through quilt-patches of starry night. The water in the harbour quieted, and in between the occasional plop of rain, the surface became glossy, like a mirror. It was incredibly beautiful. And it wasn't enough.

The tips of desire roused earlier hadn't subsided—in fact, they had become worse, longing for someone who was desperately absent. I didn't want to think of Edward, to remember him, but he was in my new, smooth skin, in the strength I could feel behind every movement. He was the sound of my voice. And I couldn't _not_ think of him, because the memories of him were so infuriatingly vague. It felt like the dim caricatures that were all my mind could give me were the final frustrations of my weak humanity. How could my eyesight have been so weak, so poor, so appalling? How could I not remember the exact texture of his hair, and its colour, and its dizzying disarray? Hadn't his touch and his eyes and his melodic, velvety voice once made my heart race and ache? So how could I not recall these things perfectly? How could they not be burned into the inside of my skull?

Ironic, that these vague memories had been enough to torture me when I was a human; and now that I was not, now that I _wanted_ them, I was convinced that the blurry pictures were of someone else. They couldn't be _him_. He was so much more than that. He was so much more than my imperfect memories.

He was, in a way, _this_—and my eyes moved to Patrick, who was surveying the view dispassionately, distracted by whatever he was thinking. Edward's skin had been smooth, a thousand times smoother than any human's—perfect, hard, strong. His features had been defined and angular, the bones tightly caressed, the lips full, the red of his hair and the colour of his eyes perfect against their snowy backdrop. Patrick's hair was dark brown instead of bronze, his lips were more slight, his eyes more violent...but I could see Edward in those things common to all vampires.

I wished suddenly and irrationally that Patrick was Edward, and I was furious that he wasn't. The part of my mind that knew I was being stupid was utterly overwhelmed by the intensity of the emotion. I actually felt _hot_—livid, and there was a tick in my head, maybe the remnant of the heartbeat I'd never really appreciated.

But as the anger crested, the pool that had unwillingly incubated me these past few months smothered and diluted it. I was dimly aware of Christopher, and the sudden limpness in my hands—and then Patrick, not quite touching me, asking, "Bella? Are you—all right?"

And it was just him and I again, and the hush of the ocean and the wind. The darkness was not as resolute as before. Dawn was coming.

"I'm fine."

"It looked like you were fainting." Patrick sounded puzzled...but not surprised. I wondered whether he'd guessed about Christopher.

"I'm fine."

He surveyed me another second, then straightened, pulling me up by my useless arms. "C'mon," he said, and moved me to one of the shadowy doorways. It led to the bedroom. I automatically baulked. To my surprise, my arm slid easily from his hand. I'd forgotten that I was strong now, too.

He chuckled when he realized why I was objecting. "Isabella, if I were trying to seduce you, you wouldn't be able to say no." He smirked self-deprecatingly—his eyes sparkled. "I actually thought we should find you some new clothes. The woman who lives here is about the same size as you, give or take. And her stuff is all designer."

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing?" I asked, petulantly, it sounded like to me. Patrick didn't seem to mind; he chuckled.

"It has small town written all over it. C'mon, you'll like it," he said, ushering me into a large walk-in closet, which was fitted with a lot of red, leather and mirrors. Rows and rows of clothes hung neatly on rails. There was one entire wall dedicated to shoes.

"It looks like it's going to be cloudy today. We can go out," Patrick said, half-distracted by his hunt for something to go with the artistically faded jeans he'd already thrown at me.

At first I puzzled over how he knew this—but other concerns were more immediate.

"I can't. I'll kill someone."

"I'll look after you. You'll be fine. It's insane how much control you've got. Mind, I'm not entirely convinced that you're only two days old." He flashed me a smile. I scowled.

"What about this?" He offered up a black blouse and a jacket combination. "I'm going by their magazines here," he admitted, chuckling again. "I was stuck inside three days ago. It was...educational."

"I bet," I muttered, thinking about Alice and the _Vogues_ that had papered every spare inch of her and Jasper's bedroom...but my heart twisted in response, almost like it was still alive.

"I'll try it on," I said, half-heartedly—but unlike with Alice, whose enthusiasm had demanded little more than grudging acceptance, Patrick wasn't satisfied.

"Try something else," he said, motioning at the clothes. "Girls are supposed to like this kind of thing. I thought it'd cheer you up."

He probed my face again, frowning and obviously bemused. I put on a smile.

"Girls _are_ supposed to like this kind of thing," I noted. Yet another thing that was wrong with me. And Edward had been so _traditional_. He should have been with someone like Alice or Rosalie. I remembered then that Carlisle had turned Rosalie for Edward. Maybe if he hadn't been able to read _her_ mind, he would have gone for her—fallen in love, without pain or difficulty or obstruction. It would have been natural; of all the Cullens, they were the most attractive. What a pair they would have made.

"But not you," Patrick said, and chuckled. He was referring to the girls comment, but it could have meant anything. _Not_ _you_. I couldn't get those things—the happy ending, someone who truly loved me, a perfect match, a family. Even people like James and Victoria—but, no. I pushed these thoughts back, along with their bitterness. I had a lot to be grateful for. Charlie. Reneé. Jacob. Edward, if only for a little while. It was more than I'd deserved, more than I'd ever dreamed of wanting.

"This is fine," I said, and moved to the bathroom—in the glamorous house with its regrettable open floor plan, the bathroom at least had a door. Once I had it shut and the clothes piled neatly in the corner, I shelved my reluctance and turned to the large, floor-length mirror that took up one entire wall. I'd flicked the light on—habit rather than necessity—and there really was no avoiding it now. I could see it all so very clearly.

The stranger in the mirror was a perfect statue—easily as beautiful as Alice or Esme. I touched my hair, and so did she. Astonishingly, though I had paid it little attention when I left the strangers' house earlier, it fell down my shoulders, straight, smooth and silky, like I'd spent hours styling it. I swept it back. In this light the clothes _did_ look a little dour.

I dressed quickly, trying to avoid the lines of my hard, perfect reflection in the mirror while simultaneously being careful about damaging the clothes—the fabric was different, less coarse somehow. That done, I faced my reflection again and experimentally ran my fingers through my hair. It hung past my shoulders, a rippling cascade of mahogany. In the reflection that bounced off the strands, in the shine of my teeth, in the glimmers playing across the patch of water beneath the minutely dripping faucet, in the extensive chrome fittings—the light sprung up and threw out tiny rainbows of colour. It was fascinating to watch—you moved this way and that, and it dappled like a kaleidoscope.

"Isabella?" Patrick asked. I could tell by the muffle of his voice and its trajectory that he was sitting on the bed. I guessed he had his legs crossed at the ankle. When he sat, he held one shoulder slightly different than the other. It did interesting things to the shadows on his neck.

"Yes?" I asked, popping the door open and flicking the light off in one quick, smooth motion. Had I attempted anything similar when I'd still been Bella Swan, I would have been sprawled across the threshold, elbow and knees aching.

"You look great," Patrick told me. He looked a little surprised.

Had I been human, I would almost certainly have blushed. Instead, I just smiled and said, "Thanks. But...I thought we were going hunting?" I plucked at the blouse and its silky ruffles.

"You promised me a week, didn't you?" He said it cockily, but there was a dart of seriousness in his eyes.

"I did," I agreed, reluctantly.

"So it doesn't matter. We'll have time for everything."

I followed him back into the living room. The light was more obvious now, but still, it couldn't have been later than five am. He grabbed a knot of keys from an artistically lopsided bowl on a kitchen counter.

"Have you ever driven a Ferrari?" he asked me seriously, holding the front door open for me. Nonplussed, I stepped through. The "No?" I was muttering died on my lips.

The garage's electronic door slid smoothly aside. The car parked inside it was black, shiny and looked fast. I could see the little prancing horse emblem on its hood.

Patrick grinned. It made him look like a mischievous ten-year-old.

"Would you like to?"

* * *

The engine didn't so much roar as purr. The speedometer kept climbing. I slashed around a corner; it took me no effort at all to control the skid and to ride it out. I pressed my foot down harder.

I hadn't ever really liked cars, but _this_—all the flashy dials, the sounds, the tires, the speed—was something else. I could feel the smile on my face, clamped there as excitement fizzled in my veins. That this was a way to escape the ever-tightening noose never left my mind—there was way too much room for that. But at that moment, it didn't matter. Nothing did but guiding the Ferrari out of the city limits.

"There are-" Patrick began, but I'd already spotted them. I started braking, slowing down smoothly to the allotted speed. I waited until the cop cars were distant before I reapplied the accelerator.

"Patrick," I said, nimbly passing a station wagon and a truck, "can I ask you a favour? If things—don't work out for me."

I looked at him. At no point was I distracted from the road or what was happening on it, and I didn't miss a thing on his face.

"If I don't take the plunge with you, you mean?" he asked, grinning slightly. He looked relaxed, eased back in his seat, his eyes glittering. I got the feeling he was enjoying the joyride as much as I was.

"I don't think you will," I observed.

"And why is that?" He sounded curious rather than affronted or defensive. I was beginning to really like him. It was hard not to.

"It's the people who depress you, right?" This was rhetorical. I was confident in what I'd guessed from our earlier conversation. He was averse to killing. He'd gone through the process that Carlisle, and Edward, had figured out in their own ways in their own time; perhaps, if he'd been left to his own devices, he'd have figured it out for himself.

He undercut the grimace with a remorseful shake of his head. "I try very hard, but you know how it is, Isabella."

I did. I vividly remembered every human scent I'd sampled since my transition, and the burn pounded constantly in the back of my throat, heedless.

"But you don't have to do that anymore," I pointed out. "You can..." I hesitated, looking for the most inoffensive word, but there really wasn't one. "..._feed_ on animals instead. You can manage your thirst that way. It's possible."

"Your vampire friend did this?"

I nodded once, shortly, returning my full attention to the road. I slackened the pace when I saw the signboard flash past, then began looking ahead for an exit. This was as far as I was willing to go—in this direction, at least.

"Did he change you?" Patrick asked suddenly.

There was no point in stalling. "No," I admitted.

This he wasn't expecting—he frowned. "Then what happened?"

I swallowed. I'd shirked the law and performed an illegal manoeuvre; as I sped up, the sound of disgruntled horns followed me in an uneven symphony of annoyance. I ignored it and cut past a queue of slow moving vehicles.

"An enemy of his," I said. "She was trying to kill me." And, hearing it like that—put succinctly, after everything that had happened—it made my stomach knot. My tear ducts pricked, but there was no moisture. "I guess she succeeded in a way. Just not the way she'd wanted."

"He didn't stop her?" Patrick sounded annoyed.

"It's complicated." We were going so fast, it looked like the other cars were driving backwards.

"Meaning you don't want to tell me," he said, shrewdly.

"I can't. It's-"

"Complicated," he interrupted, and grinned. "I understand."

"Who turned you?" I asked, after a minute or so of silence.

"He never actually told me his name." Patrick said this conversationally, like we were discussing the weather. "It was an accident. He was interrupted. The medics tried to help me—they thought the Germans had attacked me and used some of their horror Nazi science or something."

I couldn't help it; I gaped at him. "Were you in the war?" I blurted.

He was amused. "Just the second one. I almost made it to the end, too."

"What happened?"

Patrick shrugged. "He came back, later that night. I was writhing in agony and all that. The doctors," and there was a little catch in the word, "couldn't do anything. I think they were frightened. They put me by myself. I could hear them conferring, between...well, you know." He grimaced: the screams. I remembered Carlisle and Rosalie's stories. I remembered my own.

"It was dark when he came in. He told me everything. What he was, what he'd done, what I was turning into. He told me about the Law Keepers and the sun. And then he left. He advised me to do the same, once I was done."

"He left you?" I couldn't help it; I was angry on his behalf.

"It's not uncommon, Isabella. You were left, weren't you?" He wasn't accusing me; just stating a fact.

"I—it's different," I hedged.

"Is it? He must know what's happened to you, but is he here?" He raised his eyebrows. His voice had sharp ridges in it now.

I opened my mouth. I wanted to defend Edward, I wanted to hurt Patrick for even _implying_ that this was somehow Edward's fault. But I couldn't.

_But you fled_. A voice of reason, or denial—I couldn't tell which was which.

_Because I didn't want him to feel any more obligation toward me_. The trusted chorus.

"It's not the same," I repeated, curtly.

Patrick didn't argue; he just stared at me for a few seconds, then nodded.

"What happened when you woke up?" I asked, wondering whether he'd answer. I was expecting a lot and not returning anything, least of all trust.

Patrick sighed. "I didn't believe what the vampire told me, so when the pain stopped, I thought everything was fine—that I'd imagined the bite, et cetera. I felt so...alive. Strong, imbued."

I nodded.

"Then the doctors came in." He said this wryly, but I caught the flash of chagrin in his eyes. "I didn't understand why they stared until later, when I got a look at myself. As soon as they came in, I—well, I stopped thinking. Their hearts were beating and the thirst—it just crushed everything else. I couldn't stop myself. I'm not sure I even wanted to, to be honest."

"And then?" I prompted, when he lapsed into a fresh bout of silence.

He shrugged again. "It wasn't hard to disappear. It was the end of the war. Everything had already gone to shit."

I nodded, though this I didn't fully understand.

"But you wanted to ask me a favour." The smile flickered again. Having gone through all of that, what I wanted must have seemed foolish to him. I felt guilty for what I'd expected. What I still expected.

"Oh, right." It just didn't seem like the right moment to ask for something so selfish.

"If you choose the Volturi, and I don't...what's the favour?"

"It's just." I bit my lip, then budged. "My dad. I don't want him to spend the rest of his life looking for me. I couldn't bear that. Reneé would move on, eventually, but Charlie..."

Patrick nodded, shifting his gaze from my face to the hood. "You want me to convince him somehow that you're dead."

"Yes. Will you?"

"If you want me to, I will. But maybe it doesn't have to end like that." He looked at me again.

I didn't see any other way that it could end, so I didn't comment; I just shrugged and concentrated on the road. We were back in Seattle. The clouds hung low in the sky, dark and depressing. There was a mist of moisture in the air that wasn't quite rain, and it made everything shimmer, but with nothing but concrete and asphalt to balance it out...

I was heading in the direction of the loft, but lazily, in no real hurry to get back. The road forked and I braked, choosing an avenue. For a millisecond—shorter even that that—I thought it was the light, but then I realized what I was really looking at—and quickly sped off down a sidestreet. Luckily traffic was thick, so I was pretty confident that he hadn't seen me.

Patrick, though, had noticed, not only my reaction, but also the one who'd set it off. It was hard not to notice Jacob at the best of times. He was a giant, and the scowl he'd worn had actually diverted pedestrians. You couldn't really blame them. When he got angry, it looked like he could snap bones like they were twigs. He probably _could_.

But even as I drove away, it felt like I snapped down the middle—one part of me was here, in the car, and the other stayed with Jacob. Why was he here? And did it even matter? He was here—was I _really_ going to leave him again?

The car screeched to a stop. I had the door open before Patrick could react.

"Isabella?" He was bewildered.

"I'll be back later," I said, jogging back the way I'd come.

"Bella!" He had a hand around my arm before I could jerk it away, but I was stronger than him. That didn't stop him from following me, though.

"Isabella-"

"I've got to see him." The urgency was overwhelming. Selfish, selfish, selfish—but he was _Jacob_. He was home. He'd said he'd take me, even if I turned into what he hated the most. My heart felt like it had swollen—like, if it could beat, it would be thundering in my chest. Maybe I did love him after all. Maybe-

"Wait!" Patrick said. This time he got an arm half around my waist, but only because I'd already halted. I smelled it, too. It was...

"It's them," I realized, and in that instant I saw him.

He was several blocks down the street, though the distance in no way diminished his features. His hair was as ruffled and restless as always. He was getting into the Volvo; next to him, Emmett had already swung himself into the interior. Their backs were to us, but if they turned...

Patrick's arm faltered; he'd seen them, too.

"The car, Isabella?" he suggested. He sounded uncertain.

I nodded, spinning around and heading for the Ferrari, where it was haphazardly parked, its doors open and the engine still running. The addition to it, though, was unexpected. Jacob had his hands in his pockets. His face registered chagrin, anger and tenderness. It all cycled quickly through to suspicious, though, when he saw Patrick.

"Bella?"

"Jake?"

"You're—alive." He only hesitated a second before the second word, but the pause reverberated in my head, quickly slimming down the relief I'd felt, seeing him.

Things had changed. Things were different.

And, I thought regretfully, watching as Jacob's arms twitched, they were still _exactly_ the same. What he'd wanted and I hadn't; what I'd used him for anyway.

The sound of the engine distracted me. I flashed a look over my shoulder, but the Volvo had gone and was driving away—its engine losing pace to the traffic it got swallowed into. When I looked back, I found Jacob's eyes still on me. Pinched, like they always got when he was thinking things he shouldn't.

"Why are you here, Jake? It's not safe for you." I was careful about keeping a large patch of tarmac between us, but there was nothing I could do about the pedestrians. This wasn't what you'd call a populated street—it was a little on the seedy side, with a crack of overgrown garden separating a dismal-looking tenement from a shop fronted with strings of herbs and animal parts. Farther down there was a tattoo parlour and second hand clothes shop. The people moved quickly, drawing their warm scents after them. Patrick stood a little closer to me than was the norm, probably ready to grab me if something went wrong.

"I don't care about that," Jacob said. He was agitated—he spoke urgently, and looked like he wanted to move closer. I took a step back, just to be on the safe side. He pretended not to notice. He pretended not to be hurt. "I'm not sure how long it'll take them to figure out I've found you," he said, teeth grinding. "_Alice_," (he spoke the name with a faint sneer) "has been watching the whole time, looking for clues. She saw you on the highway."

"And when she suddenly doesn't see me..." I realized.

"What does that mean?" Patrick asked. He sounded curious. You could cut the tension in the air with a knife, and he sounded merely as though his interest was piqued. I wondered if this was the benefit of age.

"She's _his_ sister," I explained quickly. "She can see things that haven't happened yet."

"She's seen you," Jacob told Patrick, with that edge his voice got when he wanted to make trouble.

"Jake, this is Patrick," I said, feeling both stupid and scared, introducing a vampire to a werewolf. "He's been helping me since—you know."

Patrick's eyes were narrowed. "What's wrong with him?" he asked me, jerking his chin in Jacob's direction, his nose wrinkled in disgust. I couldn't blame him. Jacob really did smell pretty bad—rancid, like an animal, but not as appetizing.

"What?" Jacob demanded sharply, taking a step in our direction.

"He's—kind of like us," I ventured, not wanting to betray Jacob's secret—but not wanting to put Patrick at ease when the truth was that Jacob was _dangerous_. Even more so if the rest of his pack showed up.

Patrick subjected me to quiet scrutiny. A second passed. Then he nodded, his frown easing out.

"The car?" he prompted again.

I bit my lip, then gave one curt nod. "They can't know where I am, Jake," I told him. "You won't tell them, will you? Please."

"On one condition." Jacob didn't hesitate, and I wondered briefly—wildly—what was going through his mind. Had he expected this? Had _they_? And where was Sam and the others? It was unlike them to split up. Was he here against Sam's wishes? But was that even possible?

"What's the condition?" Patrick asked.

Jacob ignored him. Instead he looked at me, his eyes livening."Just tell me where you're staying. C'mon, Bells, you _know_ I won't tell him." When I hesitated, he added, "I just—we can't leave things like this."

I opened my mouth, then closed it again and swallowed. The darkness in Jacob's eyes wavered, and his shoulders dropped.

"It's not safe for you," I said. I wished I could make him understand that leaving him alone was probably the best thing I could do for him. "Jacob, I just—I'm-"

I snatched another look over my shoulder. I could swear I heard the Volvo. When I turned back, Jacob's eyes hadn't left my face.

"Bells," he whispered. When he said my name that way, it was like nothing strange existed—no werewolves or vampires, no Edward or heartbreak. We were back in the hospital; friends, comfortable, happy. "Please. I just need to know that you're all right."

I huffed out a lungful of air, dragging my hands through my hair. "The marina. You'll be able to—to _find_ us, right? Smell us?" I checked, uncertainly.

Jacob nearly looked like he was about to roll his eyes, but instead he just nodded. "Of course."

I slipped past him, getting into the passenger side, as Patrick had taken the wheel. Jacob peered down at me through the window.

"I'll come by as soon as I can," he promised, his dark eyes solemn.

I nodded. I was afraid that if I spoke Jacob would hear in my voice everything that I couldn't tell him: that I couldn't ever be with him, that I was living on borrowed time, that, yes, I was that selfish.

The Ferrari ripped quickly down the street. Jacob watched us drive away for a few seconds before he disappeared around a corner. I could swear he was shaking.

That was the last time I ever saw Jacob Black.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry about the massive wait. Please review; I'd like to know what you guys think! :) More/less Patrick, for instance? Thanks for reading!**


	12. Chapter 12

12.

Patrick and I never made it back to the loft.

We took a long, winding route to the marina in an effort to avoid Alice's visions. By that time the moisture in the air had turned into a mournful drizzle. The clouds were like steel and ash, tumbling ominously overhead. It made me think of the cliffs in La Push.

But the thought that I might see Jacob again, if only for a little while, wasn't quite enough to battle the oppressive mood in the car. It felt as though the brief exhilaration from the joyride had petrified in my veins. It felt like I couldn't breathe, though logically I knew there was no real obstruction. Just my heart.

My dead, silent, useless heart.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Patrick asked suddenly, frowning. We'd been silent for a long time. I'd been too ashamed to speak; too afraid of how much of my pitiful mental state Patrick had glimpsed, when Edward was that close.

"Tell you what?" I asked. I was thinking about Alice and her visions, or Edward and the other Cullens, or Jacob.

But Patrick said, "To call you Bella. Jacob didn't use your full name," he pointed out, when I hesitated.

Patrick stared at me, waiting for an answer. Now that I knew what it felt like to drive a vehicle as a vampire, the non-attention to the road didn't bother me so much, which chafed at my heart. I knew it was unreasonable, even stupid, but it was another thing Edward and I had shared—another thing we should have discovered together.

"I don't..." I could feel my lips bounce around erratically as I struggled for a sane explanation. "I just...I guess it's because I'm not _Bella_ anymore."

I shrugged and swallowed back the chokehold, trying to avoid Patrick's eyes, but he had a way of getting you to look at him. Perhaps because there never was any judgement there.

"You'll find her again," he said. I could tell that he absolutely believed it, too. "Just give it enough time. She's still in there. I can see her. When the vampire isn't looking," he amended, grinning impishly.

I couldn't help it; I grinned back.

"Thank you," I said. I felt self-conscious, but there were no hot cheeks to betray it. I could hear the gratitude ringing in my words. "For—well, _everything_. I don't know what would have happened if-"

But I could sense it and my words died away. There was a little pause in the Ferrari's manic engine before it sped up again. I snapped my head around. It couldn't be—or could it?

"Did they see us?" Patrick asked. He wasn't driving unreasonably, and I guessed that it cost him something _not_ to speed up. The back of my neck and arms crawled. I instinctively wanted to run. My stomach was a tight, hard knot of panic.

"No. No, they're not looking this way."

The relief saturating my words surprised me, but there wasn't enough time to analyse it. I had to know. I had to be sure.

"Are they—is that-?"

Patrick glanced at me, then at the rearview mirror. His nod was curt. When he spoke, his voice was steely.

"Not all of them. That was just the Guard."

The five vampires had looked stunningly out of place on the crowded street. Their skins were frosted white, their eyes melodiously red, their clothes too dark and too old-fashioned. Two had been almost identical and obviously young, sexless and cherubic. Two looked a little like bodyguards, though they weren't equal in size—the one who'd brought up the rear reminded me a lot of Emmett. The fifth was a woman I could only compare to Rosalie, though technically they looked nothing alike.

"What are they doing here?" I demanded. My thoughts had flashed immediately to the Cullens. But the Volturi were Law Keepers—and the Cullens hadn't broken any laws, had they?

"They're probably here to deal with the outbreak," Patrick said. "The New Borns. I knew it was only a matter of time," he continued, but more to himself than to me. "It's been going on for months now. I'm surprised it's taken them-"

But he broke off. The look he gave me was angry.

"What?" I blurted.

"You're not honestly thinking of going to them _now_?" Patrick demanded. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that would be? They won't stop to listen to explanations—to them you'll be just another New Born. What if your friend," (here he grimaced; the reaction looked involuntary) "tried to stop them? They'd obliterate him and his entire coven! Is that really what you want?"

The question, though, was rhetorical, because he continued.

"That's what the Volturi _do_. They clean up. Everything. Every_one, _innocent or guilty. If you go to Rome, to Aro, you might have a chance to keep the ones you care about safe. But in a situation like this?"

My eyes pricked and for a second I was so annoyed I couldn't get a word out, but the panic flattened it.

"Do you have a cellphone?"

Patrick frowned, the beginnings of a question forming on his lips, but I interrupted him.

"_Do you have a phone or not!_" My voice crested just short of hysteria.

Patrick pulled a cellphone out of his pocket and handed it to me wordlessly. He watched me dial.

I still remembered the number; I just prayed that it was connected. There was a pause, then it started ringing.

It only took two rings, which was about the norm, if I remembered correctly.

"Yes?" Alice chimed. Her voice was distorted by the line, but it was so obviously her. I could hear her breathing. She was in a moving car, just like I was.

"Are you all right?" I demanded. If I'd been human, I'd have been in tears. Fear pressed its snout against the soft tissues of my brain and my mind spun out a hundred different horrible scenarios. I couldn't get the beautiful twins' blank eyes out of my head.

"Bella?" Alice sounded incredulous, which was odd for her. As soon as she said my name—almost simultaneously, really—I heard someone else in the background.

"It's Bella?" he asked.

"Alice, you've got to listen! Where are you? You're not still in the city, are you? Alice?" I repeated, when she didn't respond immediately.

"I'm here," she said, sounding confused. "No, we're almost back to Forks. Bella, we've been looking for you, we-"

"Let me speak with her!" Edward objected in the background. I nearly snapped the phone in half against my ear.

"Just listen! The Volturi are in Seattle, we saw them. Patrick says they're here to clean up the New Borns..."

I only noticed then that we were on the outskirts of the city, racing away from Seattle and Forks. Patrick's knuckles were white on the steering wheel. I felt both relieved and afraid. I wasn't making a big deal out of nothing—the Volturi really _were_ dangerous. But if they found us—or the Cullens, or the _wolves_...

"They're here?" Alice repeated. Her voice was frosty; I recognized the fear.

"Just get everyone out of the city, please." I didn't care that I was begging Alice—my once best friend, who'd dropped me as easily as Edward had. "_Please_, Alice, I'm afraid! I don't want them to have _any_ reason to-"

"Bella?"

It felt like the world dropped away from the soles of my feet. My stomach flipped. I was tumbling around in the cold ocean all over again, every inch of me alive with pain and anger and sadness. Every inch of me broken.

Edward's breathing was uneven. "Bella? Are you still there?" The desperation made his voice faint.

My answer was barely any louder. "Just—please, just get out of the city. We're leaving. I just want to know that everyone's safe. Tell Jacob—tell him I'll be fine, okay?"

There was silence on the other end of the line for two seconds. I could hear that their car had stopped.

"I promise, Bella," Edward said finally. "Where are you going?" he added nonchalantly, but his voice sounded careful; I wondered if he was acting under diction from his sister.

I glanced at Patrick. His jaw was set, but his eyes flashed full of sympathy when he looked at me.

"Edward..." There were so many things I wanted to say, but of course I couldn't. I didn't want to—I _shouldn't_ want to...

"Thank you," I told him, and hung up. I switched the cell off before they could dial back; I wasn't sure I'd hidden the number. I handed the phone back to Patrick, who returned it to his pocket.

"They seem very concerned about you," he said, after a stretch of silence. I'd crossed my arms over my chest, which had the overwhelming urge to crumple to pieces.

"It's just guilt," I said, shaking my head, like that would clear my mind of his face. I'd seen him that morning with my new eyes; every detail was imprinted in my memory, every fleck of the wind in his hair, every line of his face, the bell curve of his lips.

"You care for him a lot," Patrick noted. "I thought maybe it was more...superficial. We're lookers," he clarified, snorting at his own choice of words. "I thought it was, well, just sex. It's not that unheard of," he pointed out at whatever he saw in my face. "Of course, most vampires usually eat their human partners."

"It wasn't like that," I said reflexively, but then I sighed. "I don't know _what_ it was," I admitted. "Delusion. Misplaced kindness. Edward was always..._saving_ me, and I was stupid enough to believe that it was more."

"Are you sure it wasn't?" Patrick asked.

I could answer with certainty. My heart plumbed the depths of despair.

"Yes. I'm sure."

Patrick stared at me for a few seconds, then nodded and returned his gaze to the road. The farther we drove, the wilder the scenery became. We weren't on a highway, I noticed then—the road we'd been flying along was little more than a thin ribbon of tarmac, and completely deserted.

"Where are we?" I asked, when we slowed. Patrick pulled onto another sideroad, this one an overgrown dirt track. Trees fettered the view in every direction. A small way up the dirt road was a rundown log cabin, one corner of which was visibly sagging.

"Far enough," he answered. He smiled when he saw my expression. "I left some of my stuff here. And it's as good a place as any to dump the Ferrari." He gave the flashy car a slightly longing look.

I followed him off the road and up the short, steep embankment, into the cabin. It wasn't very big, and it was obvious that it'd been empty for a long time. It smelled of wood and mould and rot and dirt. Dust coated what remained of the furnishings: a bed; a cracked table. It seemed strangely macabre, the way everything had just been left, and I wondered suddenly if _this_ was the real vampire life—moving around deserted spaces, never stopping, never belonging. I remembered how surprised Laurent had been, when the Cullens told them about their home. Vampires were nomads; the Cullens and their polished life had been the exception, nowhere near the rule.

A fresh wave of paranoia hit me, the fear trickling like slime down my back. What would it be like, I wondered, to spend your whole, endless existence roaming—never settling down, never having a purpose? To spend it alone and bereaved? Unwillingly my eyes swivelled to Patrick's back. He had snapped away several floorboards in the middle of the room to reveal two large, lumpy green satchels.

"Old habits," I guessed, thinking that the bags definitely had an Army surplus look about them.

He chuckled. "You bet." He slung one bag over his shoulder, dangling the other from his left hand. He took a step in the door's direction, but paused when he saw that I wasn't following.

"How long have you been alone?" I blurted. The question popped out before I could stop it.

He frowned. "Why?" he asked. I guessed from his sudden reluctance that I'd hit a nerve.

"You're such a nice guy," I said, honestly, "and I-"

He dropped the bags and took two quick, long strides, covering the distance between us so quickly I wondered wildly whether we were actually being attacked. And even though I could _see_ it coming—nothing blurred a vampire's vision—it was so unexpected that it felt like the air had been knocked out of me.

His hands around my waist were eager—he half lifted me into the air, to make up for the differences in our height. His lips were soft and compelling. I could feel his breath hitch when I parted my lips, to inhale his scent and to taste him. He reminded me of autumn. But even as I curled my hands around his neck, I knew that autumn wasn't summer.

I pushed away, gasping for air like I'd been drowning. I didn't have to breathe, but the need was instinctual. I shoved my hands through my hair, twisting away from him, but he stepped with me, keeping one palm against my back.

"Isabella?" His voice was rough.

I shook my head, putting another step between us. This one he let me have.

There were a few moments of silence. I forced my breathing to calm. I could hear him do the same, somewhere behind me.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I thought—when you asked..."

I nodded and turned back to him. My teeth worried my bottom lip.

"It's fine. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-" I began, but he interrupted.

"I misinterpreted. Forgive me. I didn't—I won't do it again."

We regarded each other for a few seconds. I tried to smile, but my insides were in revolt. I was disgusted with myself that I'd misled him—my only friend, someone who had been truly kind to me. And another part of me was furious that I'd put a stop to it. The feeling of his hands seeking out the touch of bare skin—the tug of his teeth on my lower lip...

"Really," he said, voice quiet. He looked a little sad. "Sorry."

I nodded. "Me, too." And I wasn't just apologising for my behaviour. I was apologising for that which I couldn't return.

He slung a satchel over his shoulder, but before he could pick up the other one I'd snatched it up and copied him. I smiled at his questioning look.

"Old habits," I said. I tried not to think of how Edward had always treated me—opening doors, carrying my things. But of course he was already there. The blood coursing so thickly through my veins only had one other point of reference for a kiss like that, and that was Edward.

Then again... I tried not to grimace at the truth. Edward had never kissed me like that. He'd never been able to.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

Patrick surveyed my face a moment longer than he needed to. Then he sighed. "I was thinking as far away from here as possible, at least until the Volturi have finished what they came here to do. What do you think?"

That was the moment I realized that things had changed. Patrick wasn't just a strange vampire trying to stop me from killing myself anymore. We were friends. We were partners. An odd, lurching sense of satisfaction settled in my stomach. I didn't feel so afraid or so alone. It almost felt like I could do it—_this_, life, living. Without Edward. Without a home.

"That sounds like a good plan to me," I said, and flashed a smile. It didn't feel so out of place, even. Here we were—on the precipice of an adventure. I wasn't totally immune to that, though there was a queasy edge to the euphoria.

I didn't recognise it then, following Patrick into the forest. I didn't know that it was a warning. I could feel the wind in my hair and the textured branches of trees whipping at me as I jogged past. Patrick's eyes glittered in the muted light. For the first time in months, I felt safe, and I wasn't stopping to think about it.

* * *

We hiked for perhaps an hour—if you could call it hiking. It was more like a race. I moved so quickly and wound through the forest so easily that it looked like the trees were doing a little dance to stay out of my way. My hair whipped back, and the smell of the forest whiffed away the last of the orangy highlights that clung to my clothes and my hair. The only annoyance was the bounce of the satchel against my back, and I tried not to compare this to the trips Edward and I had taken, with me on his back.

I was surprised when Patrick and I reached another road. While it wasn't a dirt road, it was so overgrown that I doubted that the tarmac really made all that much of a difference. There were signs of recent disturbance, though, and a hundred meters or so farther a Land Rover was parked.

"You really were a soldier," I muttered, when Patrick fished a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the cab. He tossed his bag onto the back seat, then took mine and threw it in as well.

"I was coming into a war," he shrugged. "I wanted to be prepared."

"A war?" I repeated, climbing in. The inside of the truck was surprisingly luxurious. It had all the latest gadgets blinking on the dash, and the radio flared up when Patrick turned the key in the ignition.

"The bunch of New Borns that have been running wild in Seattle's streets these last few months?" Patrick said, voice creeping on the edge of hardness. "They were created for a reason. Haven't you heard the histories?"

He flashed me a questioning look.

"What histories?" I asked. I was a bit annoyed. I was so used to knowing everything about vampires, and apparently, he was, too.

He grinned at my tone; obviously he found my irritation amusing.

"I'll give you the highlights. A couple of years ago—the nineteenth century," he specified, when I opened my mouth to ask, "the vampires in the south were wildly out of control. They fought for dominion over human populations, the logic being that if, say, you were the only vampire in a city, you could feed much more often than if there were many other vampires."

I nodded. That made sense, in an unsettling sort of way.

"The problem was, though, that the wars were taking their toll on the vampire population, because, save a few vampires with—well, let's call them 'talents'-the opposing sides were pretty evenly matched. All vampires being more or less equally fast and strong. But New Borns..." He gave me a pointed look, carefully steering the truck along the bumpy road.

"What about them?"

"When you're very young, you're stronger than older vampires—much stronger. That strength lasts about twelve months, give or take a month. So this one vampire had an idea. He began creating dozens of New Borns and used them offensively. New Borns are wild, but if you have enough of them, you can beat even a strong coven pretty easily."

"So you think someone in Seattle-" I began, hysteria taking a peep out in every second syllable, but Patrick interrupted me.

"Don't worry, Isabella. The Volturi wouldn't have left them alive."

I nodded, and Patrick continued.

"Someone in Seattle—an older vampire—created a bunch of New Borns—an _army_ of them. But the thing is, up here, in the north? There are no territorial disputes. Life here is different than it is down south, and the Volturi have taken great pains in keeping it that way. So the only reason that I can see for someone to make an army in Seattle..."

"It's the closest city to Forks," I realized. I actually felt nauseated. "_'It's a city, Isabella. Things happen in cities,'_" I quoted him, horrified.

"You said the one who turned you was trying to kill you," Patrick said.

I shook my head dumbly. I couldn't believe it. "To get back at Edward for killing her mate. It was Victoria." I remembered her hair and her laugh more than I did her face. More than I did the bite.

"Why did Edward kill her mate?" Patrick asked—sharply. I looked up in time to see a flicker of hatred in his eyes.

"You don't understand," I said. "James—her mate—he was trying to kill me. It was all a big game to him. He was hunting me, and Edward..."

"Edward saved you," Patrick surmised grudgingly.

"I can't believe she went that far!" I tried to calm down, but anger pulsed behind my eyes, bittered my mouth, made my fingers twitch. "_An army?_ How—what if-" I couldn't pronounce words—my teeth felt too sharp and my mouth too empty—I so badly wanted to _bite_ something.

"Isabella," Patrick said, his voice soothing. "They're fine. The New Borns are dead. They wouldn't have stood a chance against the Guard. They're dead," he repeated.

I nodded, but I was breathing heavily, like I'd been running.

I could feel Patrick's eyes on my face, but I ignored him, trying to get a grip on myself. Christopher was mysteriously absent, though I could feel a flexing around my head, like pressing your hand up to glass you hadn't realized until just then was there. The anger didn't want to clear, though. Every nerve-ending tickled in anticipation of a kill I couldn't make.

The Land Rover jerked to a sudden stop. My head snapped up, but we were alone. Forest stretched away for miles in either direction.

"Come on," Patrick said, cracking his door open.

"What now?" I demanded, irked.

He chuckled at my tone. "_Now_ we're going to hunt. You need to kill something," he pointed out, "and I'm kind of hungry."

Excitement and thirst bubbled up in about equal amounts.

"You still want to try animals?" I checked, clicking my door shut behind me.

"Yes. As you pointed out, I'm hoping that a lacto ova diet will combat the oppressive guilt that lately has formed a large part of my human dining experience." He said this all with a big smile, but I guessed that it cost him something to admit that out loud.

"This is much lighter on the guilt front," I agreed, wishing I could cheer him up somehow.

"Unless it's bunnies," Patrick said, with mock-horror. "No bunnies."

We were silent, jogging through the undergrowth, eyes sharp and ears pricked. It took a while before we found something. I wasn't immediately sure what it was—it smelled similar to the deer I'd killed, but more appetizing. It turned out to be a mountain lion.

It didn't noticed us—it was up in a tree, its tail flicking lazily from side to side. The action was strangely hypnotic, with its heat and blood so close. Was that part of the reason that it was Edward's favourite?

Patrick motioned silently for me to take it, but I shook my head and waved him on. He only hesitated half a second, then stole forward, his eyebrows pulled together, face rapt with concentration. It looked so easy for him, the transition from person to predator; like throwing off a jacket and leaving it behind in the street.

I watched him carefully. His approach was cautious at first—until he was close enough. His movements sped up rapidly, and before I could even open my mouth to gape, the mountain lion was dangling limply from his arms, his face buried in its neck.

It took less than a minute for him to drain it completely. He drank slowly, patiently; something about the way he paused to enjoy it, and the shadow of his eyelashes on his cheeks—it made the pit of my stomach tingle. I had to fall back, putting a few trees between us. When I moved, his eyes shot up; he watched me retreat, expression unfathomable. Then he dropped the dead animal and straightened from his haunches.

He was a clean kill—his clothes were dusty from the lion's hide, and a tiny droplet of blood clung to the corner of his mouth, but other than that (and comparing it to the deer I'd slaughtered), he looked impeccable.

"Are you okay?" he asked. He looked concerned.

"Yes," I said, quickly—maybe a little too quickly. "How was it?" I asked, motioning at the mountain lion at his feet.

He followed my gaze, studied it for a moment, then looked back at me.

"Not as bad as I'd expected," he said. His face crinkled a little. "But not as good as human blood."

"Apparently it's like vegetarianism," I told him.

"I can understand the analogy."

Afraid that Patrick would see something in my face that he really shouldn't, I started off in another direction, my legs moving even as I thought about the action. The woods curved around me, the thick limbs of trees splayed eerily against the green-tinged light filtering from above. The leaves dripped and rustled. I tried to catch a hold of any scent, hoping that it would distract me, but I was still curiously aware of Patrick shadowing me. He kept a fair distance, though, and after a few minutes the thirst took over.

I felled another deer. The blood was lyrical. It didn't seem to matter so much that it wasn't as good as human blood—it was good enough. It was wet and warm and delicious. I drank more carefully, angling myself so that I could drink without worrying about spilling. I tried to be patient, but I was too thirsty for that. I only took notice of Patrick's presence when I was almost finished.

I dropped the animal and stepped away. Patrick stood quite a way back, a strange expression on his face. I thought that I recognized it, so I averted my eyes and absently wiped over my mouth. There was no blood on the back of my hand, and I felt irrationally pleased by this.

The reason for that was obvious, but it still took my brain a second to admit to it, and that set me awash in anxiety and guilt. The reason I was so pleased was because I didn't want Patrick to think of me as being as savage and uncontrolled as he seemed to think all New Borns were. A part of me wanted to impress him, and that didn't bode well.

Not well at all, I thought, trying to ignore Patrick's approach.

"Are you done?" I asked him. My voice was smooth and unperturbed.

"That's all?" he countered, eyeing the dead deer meaningfully.

"What do you mean?" I asked, but casually, like his random assumptions didn't burn like embers in my stomach.

He smiled wryly. "New Borns are usually—well, thirstier."

I shrugged and started back to the truck. I wondered if our path would be as obvious to human eyes as it was to mine. I could make out every snapped twig, every crushed bit of undergrowth, the faint traces of footprints on the softer dirt. None of these were as useful as my sense of smell, though. Following our mingled scents was as easy as walking down a street.

Patrick joined me and we ran side-by-side for a couple of minutes, slowing only when we could see the truck. I felt an odd, ballooning sense of relief—it was still there, we were still moving, things could still change. But the question now was whether I wanted them to. The optimism deflated; it snagged on my ribs, snickered around my heart.

No Edward, no future. All this time it had been as simple to me as that. But what if I was wrong? What if there was another way? What if there was another chance?

My eyes slid to Patrick, and to my surprise I found him watching me.

"I don't want to go to the Volturi," I admitted. The words jostled uncertainly—my voice sounded strained, like torn and ruffled silk.

"What _do_ you want?" Patrick asked. He sounded curious, but his eyes were more invested in the answer than they should have been. And that made my stomach tingle in a way it shouldn't have.

I began to speak, but the rustle reached my ears before I could properly form the putty that was my blighted heart into any understood language. My head snapped up. Patrick took a precautionary step in front of me, his arms half-extended.

There was another rustle, and the shadow of a footstep before I could see anything. They were several meters away. They detached themselves from the clot of ferns and greenery that had hidden their arrival, stepping gracefully over a fallen tree to spread out into a smooth, if uneven line—their statures were so different.

Alice was at the head, her smile slipping around the corners, a slight questioning between her eyebrows. Jasper trailed her, as unobtrusive as ever—though his skin screamed otherwise—it was pitted and ravaged with criss-crossing, silvery lines. Carlisle stood next to them, tall and oddly _luminescent_—like he was lit from inside, though at that moment his eyes were fettered with worry. Esme was behind him, and behind her was Rosalie—face fixed in a scowl, her beauty incomparable. Emmett grinned from the end of the formation.

Edward's shoulders slouched a moment, but then he stepped away from the rest of his family. He spared Patrick one hard, hate-filled glare, but then his eyes shifted to mine and apology begged in the ochre depths.

I stood unmoving, wondering if I was hallucinating.

"Bella," he said, and that was when I knew. I didn't understand, but I _knew_.

My voice dropped like icicles from my mouth. I could feel myself begin to shatter as they hit the floor.

"What happened?" Faraway.

Edward swallowed. The distance between us was awkward; but at the same time it didn't seem to matter. He glanced at his father.

Carlisle's lips murmured against each other for a moment before he spoke.

"It's Jacob." His voice seemed to whisker off at the end; his husky tone chafed like a hand. "The Volturi... Bella, Jacob is dead."

* * *

**A/N: How was that for faster updating? :P As always, thanks for reading and please review :) In case you're worried, so far as I can see this story is still Bella/Edward. So unless the plot moves in a direction that makes their reunion utterly inconceivable, they will have their ending—whether happy or not... ;)**

**DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Stephenie Meyer and no copyright infringement is intended. Patrick and Christopher are mine, though, which is a little sad. **


	13. Chapter 13

Part 2

13.

_Jacob. Jacob is dead. Dead. Jacob?_

The words were like broken glass crunched tightly in the palm of a hand. I could feel them slice; I could feel their sting and their burn. No part of the realisation was lost to my enhanced mind. There was no collapse. There was no convenient blackout. No blood left to roar in my ears. No heartbeat left to splutter.

_Jacob? Jacob is dead. The Volturi...Jacob is dead. You're—alive. _

_ I don't care about that._

Everything about him rushed to the surface in a giant, instantaneous wave, all of it pounding together in a salty haze as an oppressive mass of water ground me against stone, again and again, now the flesh bruised and was healed again; now the bones in my body shattered, only to be repaired.

_Jacob is dead._

_ That's why I haven't been around._

_ He broke you._

_ Don't you remember the story?_

_ I just need to know that you're okay._

_ Bells?_

Pain exploded in my heart. I could feel it like arms shoved up under my ribcage. Sharp, splintering fingers fisted at the underside of my throat.

_That's why I haven't. Don't you remember? You're alive._

"Bella?" Tear-duct. Freckle. Full lips. My name on them again: _Bella_. His whole face twisted minutely around the word, like it had sharp edges, like it pricked at his throat as he articulated it.

Every crack in my heart swelled, every fissure tore open anew.

Edward's hands were snowy. Long fingers tapered down to narrow tips. _(Manipulating the keys of a piano, manipulating my fresh human body, blood blossomed and breath rushed.)_ He put his hands on my cheeks. They were almost warm. Like my own hands were almost warm to me.

"Can you hear me? Bella?" Urgently.

"But—Jacob." The need to swallow was instinctive. "We just saw him."

Edward started to say something, but I twisted my face free of his petal-light grip.

"But we just saw him. Patrick." I glared at him. Why was he staring at me with unfathomable eyes? And when had they become so amber? "Patrick, tell them! _We just saw him!_"

Edward's hand closed around emptiness that was supposed to be my arm. "Bella we know," he said. His voice was irregular and indistinct. His eyes broke their reverie on mine to look at Alice, who stepped forward as if beckoned.

"From what we can tell," she said, one moment a graceful smidge against the jagged line of her family, the next a dance of silk reaching out to take my hands, futilely trying to warm them with her own, "after Jacob...met you" (her eyes flickered blankly to Patrick, who stood a step behind my left shoulder, immobile) "he somehow found the warehouse where they were. Where the New Borns..."

Alice flashed Edward a look, her eyes bright with worry.

"Tell me," I said, when she hesitated.

She started to shake her head.

"_I'm not just some weak human any more, Alice, just tell me!_"

Jasper was there in an instant—less—I couldn't tell for certain because the moment he started to move, both Edward and Patrick shifted—bared teeth, the beginnings of growls furnished deep from within their gut—more throaty than I remembered, more bestial, like an axe slapped across tight wires. The hairs in the nape of my neck prickled. Jasper snatched an arm half-over Alice, whose eyes had rinsed wide as she stared into the future. The beginnings of a deep, wet calm savoured my system.

I shouted something, but whatever it was was lost in the snarl. I could see the venom glistening on Jasper's teeth, and Alice's big eyes staring imploringly up at him. Patrick had an arm on my shoulder and Edward one around my wrist. And I could feel, almost, was that it, what was that? A line, or a fog, or a glow, but I tore myself away from it and ran. _No, no._ My thoughts were like a whorl of black. _Not the calm, anything but that, anything but the cottoning fatigue of Jasper's talent._

_ Are you my friend, Bella?_

A lilting half-smile; warm dark eyes; skin that was the sun.

Grief rippled through me. Grief demanded I fold over, but I kept running.

_(No, no I never was, not really.)_

They called after me. I heard Alice's frustrated "I'm not sure!"; I heard Esme whisper, "She must have been so afraid." I could hear Jasper and Edward briefly spar, and then Edward's angry, "Just stay back!" I could hear the whisper of Patrick's feet as he tried to stop Edward, and Edward shaking him off.

"Why can't you just let her be?" Patrick asked, but Edward ignored him, already in pursuit.

I pitted every ounce of strength and speed I could from my body. The forest thickened, thinned; half-mast logs and idle machinery winked past in a flash; the forest floor dropped suddenly, crammed into a valley, raised up again; here was a cemetery; here was an overgrown lane, and all the while I could hear Edward behind me, moving into the direction I went before I did, gaining steadily as his speed and his natural grace and experience won out over my cloying newness, the way my mind still hesitated, still did not entirely trust my feet.

And then his footsteps suddenly ceased. I'd been so focused on them that their absence slowed me, and that second was all that he needed—he dove my legs out from under me and trapped me in the cradle of his arms and his tall, hard body before I could escape. He twisted my arms behind my back, his body between me and the forest floor. I struggled and almost broke his grip, but the angle made any real movement impossible. He wrapped his ankles between mine and locked them.

And all the while I shouted at him to let me go, to leave me alone. I threatened him. I tried to bite him. I begged him. It felt like my throat should be raw from all the anger and the hurt. And then my body was shaking. There were no tears, just empty, soulless sounds. I couldn't even cry for Jacob. After everything that had happened, I couldn't even mourn him. Was there no end to my inadequacy?

Edward didn't say anything. He just held on, his warm, honey-lilac-summer scent thick in my hair and my nostrils and my throat. His skin was smooth and his grip unwavering. After a while, when the screams turned into tears _(but not quite tears, stone can't cry)_ he started to hum. It took me a second to recognise the melody, and why it felt like the calm, warm water of a bath or the comfort of a strong embrace.

But eventually my lullaby faded, too. The sun was dimming behind the tree tops and the clouds.

I lay perfectly still. Though my strength hadn't faded and there was no sleepiness, I felt oddly depleted. Like an emptiness had been created that still needed to be filled.

_I'm trying, Jacob._

_ Are you really?_

"Tell me," I said quietly.

Edward didn't pause. "We don't know who got to him first: the New Borns or the Volturi. By the time we arrived, the warehouse was on fire. There was a lot of his blood. The odds that he survived..."

I shut my eyes against the intrusion of this painful reality.

His voice melted into the twilight. A hush had fallen. It felt like the world had become still; that it had stopped, and that there was only this place and I, and Edward, and everything lost, and everything gained.

Edward's hands softened on my arms and effortlessly he lifted me around, cradling me to his chest, dropping his cheek onto my hair, inhaling against my forehead, his lips brushing the lids of my eyes. One arm wrapped securely around my waist while the other tenderly explored the curve of my cheek, brushed my chin, traced a silky pattern on my arm, cupped my hand, pressed his fingers between mine and curled them into a single, snowy entity. He moved his lips to brush the tip of my nose and his eyelashes tickled my face.

_And you still love him, don't you?_

I wanted to deny it. For Jacob, I wanted to deny it. A last chance to do the right thing. A last chance to be to him what he had wanted.

But.

That feeling—an expansion, an on-the-vergeness—tight, too much for a single body to contain—pushed out from my heart and shut my throat. It was almost like not being able to breathe. Heat raced across the boundaries of my skin. A feeling that was not quite hunger, not quite thirst, not quite desire—something more basic, something more essential, something _necessary_—sucked away the resistance. My eyes opened. I could feel a gasp just behind the curve of my lips.

_Did I hope it? There was no hope. But did I want it?_

_ Perhaps if I was stronger._

When Edward saw that I was looking at him, he rolled us onto our sides. His eyes sought answers first from one, then from the other, of my own. He stilled only briefly when I brought my lips to his neck. His neck was beautiful. I tipped his jaw back, rolled on top of him. Sought out my favourite freckles and the edge of his jaw. Tasted the hard lines of his collarbone. Sucked gently on the lobe of an ear. Pushed one hand into his hair. Prised open his shirt with the other.

"Bella." His voice was rough and his breathing irregular. He locked his hands around my wrists. "Bella, look at me."

"But I am," I objected, still tasting his skin in my mouth.

He shook his head. His eyes closed. Torture showed on his face—and indecision.

I leaned down and kissed his eyelashes.

"You said—you didn't—want me." He swallowed. Pain flecked in his eyes, but my proximity was distracting him—I could see that, too. Of course, now it would. I was now beautiful.

"I do want you," I hushed him. He wouldn't let go of my hands, so I lifted myself, lightly brushing his abdomen with the inside of my thigh.

His hands tightened around my wrists.

"Then kiss me," he choked. His eyes were open. He stared at me challengingly, the etches of a grimace showing around his mouth. Each word separate; each word distinct: "If you really want me, kiss me."

I stared at his lips. Full, half-parted, twisted around an unspoken expectation.

_You really want him to be free of you? _

I did. I had. But what fair was setting him free when I would never be? Where was the fairness in loving someone who had thrown you aside, yet continued to infringe in your life, impeding any chance of escape, any chance of breaking away that you ever had?

Anger, selfishness, hurt, hatred, love, loss.

Slowly I lowered my mouth to his. His eyes were locked on mine, unblinking, unmoving. He'd stopped breathing. I could feel the air and the tension pinned in his lungs. I could feel the tautness in his belly.

Carefully I brushed my lips against his. The touch was brief and bare. He made a sound in the back of his throat and raised his head a fraction, trying to capture my bottom lip with his mouth, but I lanced back.

"Bella," he whispered. My wrists slipped from his hands as he reached up to pull be down to him, to bring me closer. His eyes were bright, the guardedness flickering into excitement.

_You could have him_. A sly, quiet whisper—an echo of Christopher.

But: _It's over._

I could never have him. Not fully, not truly. I hadn't been enough for him the first time. And though I was different now—strong, beautiful—I was still _me_. Bella Swan had never died. Isabella Swan had never existed.

How long until he got bored again? How long until his affection lapsed?

I pushed myself off of him in one quick movement, but he shadowed me instantly, following me onto my feet, reaching out soft hands to me.

"Bella?" Rough velvet. "What's wrong? If I did anything to-"

"I have to go back." My voice sounded empty even to my own ears. "I should go to Forks. I have to talk to Billy. Apologise. Make amends. I don't know how but I—I've got to do some-"

"No!" Edward roared, so suddenly and so fiercely that I instinctively curled me away from him, but again he followed, and this time his hands found purchase. They folded around my ribcage, just beneath my breasts, and yanked me closer to him. His livid face and ravenous eyes eclipsed everything else—he was all I could see, all I could smell, all I could feel.

"Every time you come close to admitting what you really feel you twist away from me at the last moment." He almost growled the words at me. "And every time I've let you walk away. I'm not doing that again, Bella. Bella." The anger slipped. Despair showed in the miserable slant of his eyebrows, the impotent fire in his lips, his eyes desperately searching my face.

"You don't love me." It hurt to say it. For so many months it had been a constant in my head, and I'd even come close to admitting it aloud. But not like this. Not as clearly and cleanly as this. _You don't love me. Edward. Edward doesn't love me._

"I've never loved anyone else!" he objected.

"You left." I shut my eyes. I couldn't stand to look at him. I couldn't stand to remember—however dimly—our last real conversation, the only one that mattered, anyway. _Bella, it's over. _

His fingers tightened. "Only to save you from me. To save you from _this_." His voice was so fraught it was almost a keen.

I shook my head. "It was a misplaced sense-"

But he merely tightened his grip, and then his lips covered mine, heedless and angry and crushing and coaxing. My stomach dropped; my breath shuddered. How different this kissing was, now that it wasn't glass/granite, now that we felt the same, now that my lips held their own. But I couldn't return it. I couldn't respond to him the way I always had.

Slowly he released me, but he didn't move his face away. He leaned his forehead against mine and breathed against my skin, my hair.

"Guilt?" he said. It took me a moment to understand what conversation he was repeating. "Owe? Yes, both. Guilt because I wanted what I shouldn't have. Guilt because I took it even though I knew I had no right to it. I was so selfish. I took away everything—your life. This-" he brushed his fingertips along my neck, "-is my fault. First I expose you to Victoria, and then I desert you when you need protection from her the most. What a fool I was." His jaw clenched. It took him a moment to work it free.

"I chose to be with you," I said. Hope had ignited in me—small, futile, but hope nonetheless, and here was its destruction again. "I knew what that meant. You don't _owe_-" I tried to untangle myself from him but he wouldn't let me, and perhaps I didn't really want to be let go.

"Bella." Pain littered the two syllables. "I owe you everything. You are—without you—before I met you... There was no real light. And now I can't see anything else. Without you I'm blind. Bella, it's a pathetic excuse for everything that I've put you through, but I love you. I have no justification beyond that, and I'm sorry-"

"Edward." His name, and again to stop him. He flinched, but he didn't move.

"You don't believe me." Pain etched on his face. Knowingness in his voice. Resolution forming in his eyes.

"I can never be enough."

"But you're _everything_."

"You'll leave again."

"_Bella!_" Patrick called. His voice was distant, but quickly closing in.

My head snapped around. Now I could hear it: running footsteps pattering through the forest, the small creatures falling silent as they whisked past. Edward didn't follow my gaze. His eyes were still on me. He'd already _heard_ them coming.

"Leaving was a mistake," he said, like there had been no interruption. The sadness and anger had faded from his features. Now they were cold. Haughty, grim. "It was a mistake I will never repeat."

I stepped away from him, shaking my head. His arms dropped to his sides as he let me go, but his eyes didn't waver.

"I will never let you go, Bella," he said simply, blackly, lullingly. It was as much a promise as a threat. "I will not lose you again." His face was a storm.

I had no time to respond. Patrick burst through the trees first, followed by Alice and Emmett. Their faces were set in hard lines.

"How long?" Edward asked. His voice was business-like.

"I'm not sure." Alice looked worried. "Not long. We haven't got much time."

"They're coming after us for Jacob," Patrick told me, at the same time that Alice spoke to Edward.

"What? Who?" I demanded, memories of the Volturi flashing in my mind's eye.

"The wolves," Edward said grimly. "They blame us for what happened."

"The Quileutes? But-"

"What are the others-" Edward started, but his voice lapsed as the information he wanted played itself out in Alice's mind.

"We were waiting for you in Forks when one of them showed up," Patrick explained, in a criss-cross of words that would have been lost to me had I still been a human. "He said it didn't feel right to him, so he came to warn them. The pack considers the treaty with the Cullens void-"

"Carlisle, Esme and Rosalie are already in Seattle waiting for us. Jasper is meeting us here in two minutes, and then-" Alice said, her words slipping in and out of animation as her eyes flashed _blank, present, blank, present_, her pupils dilating wildly.

"We have to leave," Edward concluded. "Immediately. We have no idea how big the pack is or what they're capable of—Seth couldn't tell us, Sam put up an injunction against it, one actually meant for Jacob but which affects the whole group-"

"The only reason Seth could come to us at all was because he transformed into a human as soon as he heard what had happened, what they were planning." The words hadn't quite finished buzzing from Alice's throat before she was craning her head around. A few moments later, I could hear Jasper's quick, silky approach.

"He's got a car east," Edward said, staring off into that direction.

"Let's go," Emmett said. When no one immediately moved, he said, "What's the problem? Come on."

"Patrick," I started, "this isn't-"

"Bella," Alice interrupted, "I can't tell for sure, but for now we have to assume that they already know about him. In which case it's safer if he's with us."

She shot Patrick a look that he returned. He nodded. From the corner of my eye, I saw Edward's hands curl into fists.

Jasper arrived. He slid from the trees, his tread ghostly and his face unreadable. He walked to Alice, his eyes picking apart our tense stances, energy and purpose buzzing from him. Alice had once told me that, like Patrick, Jasper came from a military background. I could see it in the set of their shoulders, the way they moved—wary, alert, even excited.

"Are we leaving?" he asked Alice, his eyes focusing in on hers. It was such an intimate look. Trusting. It wasn't like no one else mattered—more that no one else _existed_. For that space of time it was just him and just her.

Alice's eyes widened, and then she turned to me, a heavy frown dropping her beautiful face into a thick scowl.

"I think I should stay," I said.

No one reacted right away. But then Edward's jaw locked, exasperation and anger mingling in his expression. I ignored him, speaking instead to Alice. Maybe she would understand. And if she didn't... My eyes moved to Jasper. He was a strategist. _He'd_ understand.

"It's my fault. I'll tell them that. Jacob wouldn't have gone to Seattle if it weren't for me. If I hadn't gone to La Push—if Jacob hadn't..."

"Jacob wouldn't have been in Seattle if we hadn't asked him to help us search for you." Edward spoke through his teeth. He looked dangerously close to the edge. The only other time I'd seen even a spark of this mood was when James decided to hunt me.

And that day in the forest. The first day. The last day.

_Bella, it's over._

_ You're—alive._

"If I hadn't—before..." Here was the truth again. Sudden and wretched; a flare in darkness that illuminated blood-splattered walls. _I'd try harder_. I should have let him go. No—I should never have interfered in his life in the first place. Didn't I know—hadn't I always known—that there was something about me that put people in danger?

Edward's face was Arctic. "What happened today is as much the pack's fault as it is ours. If Sam hadn't agreed-" But he stopped, his words lost to angry impossibilities. It was like the first whips of wind and rain as a storm swept in from sea.

"Your staying here will only put us in more danger," Jasper said. There was obvious distrust in his eyes, but he tried to temper it with patience. "If you stay, Edward will, and if Edward stays..."

If Edward stayed, everyone would.

I looked at Edward. There was no compromise in his eyes.

But I had to try. Whatever they said—whatever wrong they or the Quileutes had done—was in reaction to me. I wasn't going to let either side pay the price for my stupid decisions. Not again. Not anymore. I wasn't going to let anyone else get hurt because of me.

Jacob was dead and it was my fault.

"I don't want you to stay." The rush of determination (and guilt, dissoluble in remorse) compacted my voice, pushed the syllables flat, made them sound angry, real. I pushed my chin out and stared at Edward intently, willing him to understand why I was doing this, willing him to believe that I'd gotten over him.

His eyes were hard and his voice disappeared around the edges, fitting back into his throat, the way it always did when he'd set his mind to something.

"I'm not leaving."

"Bella, _please_." Alice was at my side in a flash, her hands on my arm. Her eyes glittered with anxiety. "We just need to get away long enough to make sure everyone is safe. As soon as it is, I promise you, Bella—I promise—we'll make things right with the wolves. You don't want any of us—or them—to get hurt, do you?"

My teeth automatically locked on my lip. I wanted to stay to keep everyone safe and alive—but if Edward refused...

I sighed, frustrated and angry and hurt and ashamed. Alice's face smoothed out and Jasper's shoulders relaxed.

"_Finally_," Emmett snorted, rolling his eyes, which was disconcerting because he started running at the same time. First Alice followed, then Jasper and then, slightly ahead and behind me, Patrick and Edward. The six of us formed an uneven line as we speared through the trees, Jasper and Emmett at the point of the loose 'V' formation. We moved through the forest swiftly.

The car wasn't very far. My stomach pounded in my throat when I saw it—it was the Volvo. It was parked in a narrow road probably used by logging companies. Emmett immediately climbed in behind the wheel; Jasper took shotgun, and Alice wrapped herself onto his lap with a small smile. By some unspoken agreement, Edward and Patrick took either side of the back seats, Edward waiting for me to slide in ahead of him, wedging me in the middle.

Emmett floored it.

Getting out of the forest took about ten minutes, but eventually the road broadened as it swept past a logging yard, and then we were on a highway and hurtling. We hadn't been all that far from Forks, and I wondered by how much we'd missed the wolves. My stomach cringed unpleasantly as I thought about what they must be feeling. What Billy must feel.

_Guilt? Owe?_

Edward's words, now mine. Now _I_ was the debtor.

Was this what Edward felt like?

The thought discomfited me. I stole a glance in his direction that was too easily met: he'd been watching me from the corner of his eyes. When our eyes met, his mouth smoothed into a ghost of a smile, but there was nothing humorous in the expression. It didn't reach the rest of his face. He was too distant, too mocking, too self-deprecating.

_It was a mistake I will never repeat_ his gaze said.

_It's a mistake I can never make up for_ I thought-

_(He didn't know what was happening, he was all alone)_

_ -but I will try. Jacob, I will try._

* * *

**A/N: I hope this chapter was at least somewhat worth the wait. To be honest, I'd given up on IMBS. I started writing it more than a year ago, when I was in a very different frame of mind, and lately did not have enough fangirl to write past the blocks that kept popping up when I thought about the story. Some of those blocks have been resolved, so hopefully the next few chapters will come fast and hard ;)**

** Thank you for the very kind (and insistent) reviews, you guys are who I'm continuing the story for :) **

** Anyway, so Chapter 13. I tried to capture the way Bella's 'new' mind works—the thinking simultaneously thing especially, which is the reason for all the _italian inserts_. Most of those are quotes from previous chapters. In the first, now defunct version of this chapter, Bella's grief was much more overwhelming—but the thing about vampires is that they aren't easily overwhelmed, and because of the AU nature of this fic, her relationship with Jacob is more superficial than in the Saga. Her grief over him is for a friend who she formed a brief but firm connection with, paired with copious amounts of guilt. **

** For those of you who were worrying that this is no longer a BxE fic, I hope this chapter added some oomph to the canon ship :) Patrick does care for Bella, and she for him—but in a way they each use the other to compensate for the person they lost. Remember when Bella first met Patrick, how she kept drawing parallels between Edward and him? He was doing that, too—he hasn't always been alone.**

** Thank you for reading, and please review!**


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